In his three days in England so far, Jeyanth has had no shortage of meetings with new and interesting people, all of whom without exception have cooed and cuddled and made a fuss of him. He is in serious danger of being spoilt rotten.
First there was the re-introduction to Grannyand Grandad - didn't take Jeyanth very long to work out a good thing when he saw it. Nowadays when he wakes up at 7 in the morning, he not only gets to come in to amma and daddy's bed for a little cuddle, but also gets to go to granny and grandad's bed for a bonus cuddle.
We had 19 for lunch on the 27th when Jeyanth met great-grandma Jean and great uncle Ken, the Foxes, the Kettering Goringes and the Haywoods. He was slightly awed by the crowd at first, but then was perfectly content to be passed around like a cuddle dispenser for the rest of the day, and also collected a very impressive haul of Christmas presents. He accomplished another first that day, when he actually showed active interest in a new toy as it was unwrapped; reaching out eagerly for aunty Barbie's gift of a soft cuddley snowman, grabbing it, hugging it and then chewing it. It has remained a favourite, and he will reach for it whenever it catches his eye. He also managed to say 'Euwuk' very loudly as he reached for it yesterday, prompting Chris to name the toy Eric.
Jeyanth went to Church yesterday, his first foray into the wintry weather since his arrival. He was fascinated by the church, spending the entire service squirming around in grandparental or parental arms, to study all aspects of architecture, decor and peopling in detail. In the afternoon he met and played with our old friend Antranig who came over to visit. Today, Jeyanth is expecting a visit from his Uncle Nishan and his Aunty Tina.
I believe this is the beginning of a hectic 3 weeks on Jeyanth's social calendar.
Jeyanth has adapted to Enlish time with remarkable ease. We were terrified at the prospect of time-shifting him 11 hours, when it had taken us 3 weeks to get him used to daylight saving time!
Jeyanth was very tired when we arrived in Guildford around midday on Boxing day, and the hardest thing we had to do was force him to wake up after only a two hour nap, when his little body was convinced it was the middle of night and really wanted to be quite soundly asleep. We managed to keep him awake for a couple of hours, mostly by having his grandparents carry him around and show him new things and he went to bed after a bath at 5pm. It's pretty hard work convincing a baby that thinks its 3 in the morning, that its actually 4 in the afternoon, when its pitch dark outside. But, living up to his reputation as a brilliantly easy-going baby, he slept through to 4am, with a feed at midnight. He did want to be up and playing at 4am, which might sound hairy, but was actually quite alright, since Chris and I had gone to bed at 7pm and were actually feeling quite wide awake due to our own jet lag.
He has since successfully moved his bed time to around 6.30-7pm, which is his Sydney norm, but hasn't quite managed to move his eating schedule as successfully - he is still feeding quite lightly in the middle of the day, and is waking up for one feed in the middle of the night. But he is sleeping for 12 hours overnight, and the feed is a pretty cursory affair where he wakes up enough muscles to suck down a bottle while the rest of him stays asleep.
Given what this experience could have been, we cannot believe how fortunate we are and how wonderfully capable of adapting to change Jeyanth has shown himself to be. We are grateful beyond words for this divine providence.
Jeyanth appears to be a natural born traveller.
28 hours from our home in Sydney to his grandparents in Surrey hardly worried him at all - he slept all the way to Singapore, and then napped, sat and played for the 14 hour leg from Singapore to London. Only in the last couple of hours on the flight did he get at all cranky, and want to be carried around and continually shown new things (of which there are only a limited number on a 747...). At least one other passenger commented on how good he had been - I suspect this arose from relief, remembering the sinking feeling I've experienced when getting onto a long haul flight and finding a baby just a few seats away...
Jeyanth's desire to see all the new things on the plane also gave rise to a new breakthrough - rather later than many of his friends, he has learnt to take his weight on his legs. Nothing quite like a seat back which is just too high to see over to inspire an inquisitive baby to try standing up.
As for his parents - we learnt a few things about travelling with a baby. You seem to be able to take a lot of hand luggage without complaints from the airline when you've got a baby; we also learned that you need to. Qantas staff are very friendly and helpful, but don't have any idea how long a bottle needs in their ovens to get it up to baby friendly temperature (about 2 minutes, if you need this information), or how long it takes to cool down again in an ice tray when they forgot it was there. Finally, I learned that it is possible to watch the highlights of the rugby world cup four times on one flight and still find the final moments exciting :).
We arrived in London late boxing day morning, and Jeyanth settled quickly into his new routines, with very little pain - but I'll leave that for Sureka - or perhaps some guest entries from the Grandparents. Blogging time is limited here because Jeyanth is sleeping in his Grandad's study, where the computer lives...
In case you didn't gather from the last entry - we're heading off to England on Christmas day, and won't be back till the 20th of Jan. So entries will be a bit thin on the ground for a while.
It's the end of an era.
On Friday the 19th of December, Chris finished work at Avaya, not intending to return till the 13th of July next year. We are both on holidays for the next 5 weeks, three of which will be spent in the UK. When we return, I will return to full time work away from home, while Chris starts his stint at full-time parenting.
I had mixed feelings about my last day home alone with Jeyanth. Jeyanth and I had a great system worked out, and our days were mellow, relaxed and laid back. For the first time in my life, I wasn't trying to pack more things into a day than it could feasibly hold - in fact, doing one thing outside home every day was plenty for Jeyanth and I.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that I can't believe my big "6 months off" have actually come to an end - I haven't done half the things that I thought I'd do while I was at home. My novel remains unwritten, my photographs unindexed and my family tree untraced. But then again, I've read lots of novels, I've had loads of lunches with other mums, I've kept the web site and blog reasonably updated and done loads of other stuff. So on balance I DONT WANT TO GO BACK TO WORK!!!!!
I'm going to miss the small wriggly thing very badly.
It's not that he's been boring, but with preparations for Christmas festivities and the trip to the UK, we've been a tad distracted.
Quick Jeyanth update:
- We had been making lots of goldfish-jokes about the fact that Jeyanth only rolled over from his back to his front a couple of times a week. However, he is now a true master of art, and definitely prefers being on his tummy. He pretty much rolls over promptly every time you put him down on his back, is found on his front when you go to get him in the mornings, and now requires octupus-like dexterity on the part of his parents to change a nappy while stopping him from rolling off the change table.
- Part of his definite preference for straight-ahead views is that his ability to sit up has developed in leaps and bounds. He can now sit supported only by his hands, and is daily getting better at sitting completey unsupported - the improvement being measured in the time taken before he topples over.
- He is also now definitely frustrated at his own immobility. When on his tummy, he will thrash around like mad, trying to get himself going. His current combination of movements result in him actually moving backwards, and I think he gets quite cranky when he finds himself further away from the object he's trying to eat. His other mode of movement is of course repeated roll-overs, and I think he enjoys this, despite the random direction changes that these involve. We have had to provide him with a large rug for his play surface, since his playmat is no longer large enough, and our slate tiles are not at all suited for baby-play.
Yesterday, Jeyanth went to my hairdresser to get his first professional haircut. (So far, he's had a couple of home-jobs courtesy of his mother and a pair of sewing scissors!).
He was very calm and relaxed, and sat on daddy's lap and had his hair done as if he did it everyday. The lady put a big plastic tent around him (but sadly not around daddy), spray-wet his hair, and gave him a "short back & sides, with a tidy up at the top". He doesn't like the hoover at home, so we were slightly concerned about hair dryers, but he let the lady use it on the cool setting, more to blow the cut hair off his face (and onto daddy), than to actually dry anything.
Unfortunately, we didn't take a camera, so we don't have any pictures!
So he's now all groomed and ready for his big trip to England. And he looks SO grown up! Chris has a shirt completely covered in baby hair.
We went to the baby clinic for Jeyanth's five month check. The good news is that he is on track with all his developments, both physical and cognitive. He can lift himself up on his arms when on his tummy, can sit propped up on his hands and will take a bit of weight on his legs. He can now focus and pay attention to very small objects (most commonly the cross on my necklace), will reach out and take a toy offered to him and will turn to look for the source of a sound.
However, the nurse did mention that his weight gain is outstripping his length gain (80th percentile vs 60th percentile) - so he definitely won't be starting solids till he gets back from England, when he's 6+ months old.
Of course, being the paranoid parents we are, we are now worried that we might have a fat baby! This, despite the fact that a 1cm difference in his length would have made him the right length for his weight, and that 1cm is well within the error of the measurement! The nurse told us not to worry, but just not to start off on solids for a while - but nowadays, if Jeyanth spits out the bottle, he doesn't get offered a second chance!
Every evening, just before Sureka and I go to bed, we sneak into Jeyanth's room to take one last look at him for the day. Most of the time, he's lying peacefully asleep, with one or both of his arms, having escaped from the swaddling, thrown up above his head. Almost every evening we have the same response - how could Sureka and I be responsible for something so cute?
Last night we decided to be brave and risk ruining Jeyanth's nice, secure evening routine by taking him to Bible Study. We went early and put him to bed in his portacot, and, save a few squarks during the evening, he stayed asleep throughout, woke up to be put in the car, slept all the way home, woke up to be taken out of the car and put into his cot, and then slept all night.
So on this sample of one, it seems like his night time sleeping is now pretty well established. So the next obvious step is to see how he deals with 24 hours on a plane and 11 hours jetlag.
So, it took 20 weeks and 5 days to happen, but it did happen.
Today, I had baby poo all down the front of my shirt.
Motherhood is such a joy.
Another aspect of Jeyanth's development is his recently acquired ability to identify and recognise people. I've always wanted to believe deep down that he did actually know who I was - at least as far as recognising that I am the person most likely to feed him. However, recently there have been more and more signs that he can actually recognise people. The most significant of course is Chris. Chris probably doesnt realise, because he doesn't see the change, but I can observe the excitment and pleasure that Jeyanth shows when Chris comes home from work and plays with him. There is a distinct uplift in the mood, much more vocalisation and lots of waving limbs, as little Jeyanth welcomes daddy home and shows off to him. This is heart-warmingly lovely. (Except on days like yesterday, when I am a little jealous, as Jeyanth gurgles and laughs with daddy, when I've had to deal with his general unpredictable grumpiness all day!)
The only other people that I have actually seen Jeyanth respond to in a special way are his Ammamma and Thaatha. They inevitably get lots of coos and gurgles and excited smiles, which serve to increase the adoration he gets from them, if that were possible.
So slowly and so quickly, the windows into his soul are opening.
Reading about Bridget I realised how much things change when you aren't really looking. It isn't long ago that
'I am in a situation where my arms might do fun stuff. Go arms!' Hand-eye co-ordination is not really on the horizon. Nor is eye-hand co-ordination ('Wow! I just hit something! I felt it! Now where the heck is my hand?') We just have an 'activate arm waver' instruction, and then pretty hit-and-miss-and-miss results.was a fair description of Jeyanth. Now he will focus on a toy, reach an arm in the right general direction, wave it around until contact is made, and then bring his hand back towards his mouth. Sometimes he even brings the toy back with it - but if not, he just tries again, until either the toy has been knocked out of reach, or adequately dribbled on.
Yesterday Sureka had a "I'm moving to Queensland without the baby" day - Jeyanth failing to get back into any sort of pattern after the weekend away, eating lots, not sleeping, sleeping when he normally doesn't - so by the time I got home to rescue her I was set for a particually bad, and long, grumpy period. Just shows how quickly things can change. And how wrong I can be.
Instead we had a long conversation consisting entirely of laughs - giggles, squeals, and that strange sort of hiccupy laugh when the whole belly seems to be involved. And that was just me.
Yesterday also brought two new firsts. It doesn't count as crawling, but Jeyanth did manage to kick and drag himself forwards about half a body length to get hold of his beetle and stuff it into his mouth (I think there is some evidence of his intent to move there). He also had his first shower.