Milestones and Eating Update

Since I started this blog, partially, to keep a record of Tabitha's activities (since my handwriting is too dreadful to keep an attractive baby book), I ought to update things.

She has been 'walking' around with a walker/pushing a pram/holding our hands for a couple of months now.  She can do this for great distances, and does not tire easily.  She can also stand on her own for a little while - up to ten or so seconds, sometimes - but at this stage, has expressed no desire to walk on her own.  She will once she's ready!

She loves to point.  She extends her Pointing Finger and bunches up the rest of them, into a proper pointing gesture. It amazes me how they pick these things up.  She then likes to point at all sorts of things which interest her - people, balloons, dogs, pictures on walls.  She generally does this with a frown, and a 'UHHH' noise.  I like this stage - it is fascinating to learn the things which interest her enough to point.

She likes copying things - you can teach her new games or tricks quite easily.  My little sister taught her to wave and 'high five' many months ago, but more recently, she has learnt things such as blowing kisses, and the 'blinking game' which involves blinking back and forth at each other.  It is most amusing, because she tries to watch you the whole time - so her face contorts as she tries to blink with her eyes open.

She was given two toy cars for her birthday - an eco-friendly, ethically made pink race car, and a fancy plastic car which has one of those clever, battery-free motors which propels itself along if you give it a good push.  With both of the cars, she will push them around on the rug, making 'BROOOM BROOOOOOOM' noises.  It seems terribly grown up.

Like most other modern babies of her age, she enjoys taking a mobile phone - or, indeed, anything vaguely mobile-phone-sized, such as a block, remote control or piece of cardboard - and holding it to her ear, yelling 'YAYAYAYAYAYA!' into the phone.  It occurred to me, after watching this, that I must speak very loudly into the phone, since she seems to be under the impression that one must YELL into the phone.  Hmm.  Food for thought.

With regard to eating, Tabitha seems to have turned a corner.  While she has generally been an adventurous eater (as most babies are), she has always had a bird-like appetite, picking and nibbling but rarely making much of a dint in her meals.  This is fine by me - Baby Led Weaning says that food is just for fun, until the child is one, and the ABA and my MCHN have both reassured me that Tabby gets almost all the nutrients she needs from breastmilk.  However, in the past couple of weeks (since she turned one, roughly), she has started to eat slightly more heartily.  For example, yesterday for lunch, she ate:

• A small piece of veggie burger (roughly the size of a nugget)
• Half of a wedge of pear
• Half of a corn thin with cream cheese
• Half a piece of cheddar cheese
• A nibble of toast with green pickles

Her diet remains mostly protein, fat and carbohydrates (this makes sense - she is getting all her vitamins and minerals from breastmilk, so what she probably needs is more calories, protein and iron).  I continue to offer her a variety of fruit and vegetables, but she generally prefers to eat meat, seafood, pasta, breads, cheese, eggs and the like.  She sits at the 90th centile for height and the 30th centile for weight, so, as my MCHN says, "she is a clever little thing and knows not to bother filling up with apples when there is schnitzel on offer!".  I have faith that Tabby's body knows exactly what it needs - and I am grateful that she gets so much goodness from her 'milkies'.

At occasional care (which she goes to for an hour or two on a Friday morning, to practice having some playtime without mumma hovering over her), we are required to send a snack:  a sandwich, and a piece of prepared fruit.  The first time I picked her up, the lovely ladies told me, "she ate all of her sandwich, but she showed great disdain for her fruit!  She tossed it across the room!"  Yes, that sounds like my babe.

Here is Tabitha enjoying some pear:

Tabitha will still not take a bottle of expressed milk - she took one beautifully when she was younger, until around 4 months, so don't believe what they say about needing to introduce one early so they will always take one.  She knows her milkies is just as much about a nice special cuddle with 'mum-mum', inhaling deeply the scent of my skin.  She gets quite cross if anyone tries to give her a bottle!  Regardless, I do keep pumping and expressing milk, keeping some in the freezer.  For one thing, I have to admit, I just love the fact that my body can produce milk!  It seems so awesome that my boring old body can produce so much food for another human being.  I saw a bumper sticker which read, "I make milk.  What's your superpower?" which made me smile.  I might get one.

Anyway, in the meantime, I am thrilled to be able to donate our excess breastmilk.  I use the website Human Milk 4 Human Babies, which operates through facebook.  I have donated to a couple of mothers who have problems with producing enough milk for their babies - both are working like no one's business, trying desperately to increase their milk production, but in the meantime, they prefer for their babies to drink human milk from another mother, instead of cows milk or artificial soy / goat formulas.  I am in awe of these mummas, who are working day and night to build their supply - pumping, taking medications, drinking teas - as well as driving all over Melbourne to pick up donated breastmilk for their babies.  In the early days, I donated a fair bit of milk to other mothers via my midwife.  I am most passionate about human milk donation.  I attended a panel discussion on the ethics of milk donation a few months ago.  Fascinating stuff!  But too complex to go into on this post.

Now that she is a Big Girl of One, she has, a few times, cut out her morning nap.  I have tried to put her down, as usual, at 10 or 11am, and after half an hour, she is still merrily chatting in her cot.  On these days, I have fetched her back out of bed, and she has managed to stay awake until 1pm or so.  So, on these days, she has only had one nap.  I guess she is transitioning to a One Nap Age, however apparently this can be a gradual process, so we are playing it by ear for now.

As a general rule, Tabitha is a 2-4 hourly waker overnight.  She tends to feed at roughly 10:30pm, 2am and 5:30am, then wakes for the day around 7:30 or 8am.  However, on the day she turned one, she slept an eight hour stretch!!  I do not lie.  She slept from 11pm until 7am.  It was amazing.  My breasts were dreadfully engorged, hard and lumpy (Concrete Breasts, as I call them), but goodness I was thrilled.  Unfortunately, the event has not been repeated, however I am quietly confident - she did that all on her own, so I believe she will do it again once she's ready.  For now, I am making sure I relax and just enjoy the middle-of-the-night feeds.  This stage will pass, and I know that I will miss the time alone, in the darkness, just Tabitha and I, with her sleepy hand patting at my bare skin.

In other, more worrying news, Tabby can now climb up onto the sofa by herself.  She has also been able to climb stairs - quite rapidly - for a couple of months.  This is terribly cute, but alarming, because she can not yet safely get down.  So we have to watch her like hawks.  

In cuter news, Tabby loves to dance and bounce away whenever music is on.  Some of her toys play jaunty tunes, and whenever they come on, she grins and bounces her whole body up and down, poking her little bottom out.  Her favourite song is currently 'If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands'.  We sing this together, and clap our hands at the appropriate times.

Finally, two and a half molars are in.  Jeepers creepers, these have been nasty.  We didn't really have problems with her previous eight teeth, but the molars have caused her some grief.  She has been thoroughly cranky.  I will be pleased when they are all in!

Here is a picture of Tabitha rooting through my wool cupboard.  Her and the younger cat, Possum, like to do this together.  Between the two of them, they can make quite a mess in an alarmingly short amount of time: