If you haven't yet read part one, please do so first!
I'm pleased to be able to report that the first day without a morning bottle went very well indeed. Jeyanth was indeed quite whingy during his breakfast, but as he got his fill of porridge he became less fussy. He did take one or two tiny sips of milk from his cup, but that was all - he filled up on fluids with a good drink of water at the end of breakfast.
In order to keep his calcium intake up, we've been advised to give him lots of yoghurt and cheese - fortunately giving Jeyanth lots of yoghurt is a pleasurable experience for all concerned. So morning tea consisted of pear and yoghurt, and lunch of water biscuits with cream cheese and zuchini (another first, and a very suprising success). Still no milk, though.
After his nap came the breakthrough. When offered milk in a cup without a lid (firmly held by Daddy), he took, first of all a sip or two, and then several sizable gulps. By the end of the afternoon he'd drunk more than half a cup of milk straight from the cup - still only 2/3 of a bottle's worth, but not at all bad for the first day. He was a bit grumpy later in the afternoon, but a couple of wheaties seemed to fix that.
After a good dinner, he had a little more milk from a cup, and then a bumper bottle of milk (we're only dropping the morning bottle right now, since the night time bottle is what gets him through the night!), and went to bed a contented lad. If he sleeps through again, we'll be feeling very smug (not to mention well rested) tomorrow morning... If he wakes up at 3am and wants a bottle, we are in for a bad night.
Watch, as they say, this space...
Since Jeyanth is now over a year old, and already showing signs of developing a strong sense of will and independance (ie he knows what he wants, is perfectly willing to strop till he gets it), we thought we'd better get cracking with weaning him off his bottle.
Now, the way to Jeyanth's heart is through his milk supply. The exclamations of delight and frantic eagerness displayed on seeing a freshly made up bottle is on par with the reaction to a parent or grandparent returning after a long absence. In the mornings, he is generally not fit for human consumption till he has drained a bottle; treating the pre-requisite nappy change as a major miscarriage of justice. This is not where you'd choose to start.
We know Jeyanth can drink from a cup. He's been happily drinking water out of a sipper-cup for almost 6 months now. He's now even got the hang of orientation, so he knows which way up the sipper's got to be. But will he have milk from it? Not a chance! We have been trying for months to get him to have milk during the day from a cup, but have had to resort to having milk and water in different coloured cups, becuase he will refuse to drink water, if he suspects there might be milk in the cup.
Over the last week or two, we've noticed that Jeyanth's apetite for solid foods has been waning (which is normal), but that he seems to be wanting to make up for it with milk (which is cheating). So having had 3 nights in a row, where Jeyanth, having had almost no dinner, has woken up in the middle of the night and had an extra bottle around 3 am, given to him by exhausted parents who have been playing controlled-crying games with him for a couple of hours; we've decided that we need to wean him.
So, as of today, Jeyanth's milk only comes in cups in the morning. However, when I left for work, he was happily eating his cereal, whining for his milk, but absolutely refusing to have it in the cup. I think Daddy might be in for a tough day. I'm sure he'll blog to report later.
Yesterday evening, just after Sureka and I got home, Sureka was giving Jeyanth a cuddle when I walked into the room.
Jeyanth reached out his arms towards me and said "Dada!".
Dada went out for the evening a happy man.
Three new videos...
Playing with cups (before I got the hang of orientation) (2.5MB)
Walking with the help of a box (2.3MB)
Playing with birthday cards and boxes (3MB)
The second and third of these are in black and white (infrared lighting), since Jeyanth finds the visible light on our video is far too interesting to keep doing what he was doing...
Last week Sureka wrote that Jeyanth had started to 'get' verbal clues, but that they were 'Ammamma specials' - that is, he only understood words when they were said by the person who taught them to him.
In the last couple of days we've seen him move forwards in comprehension in three ways. Firstly, there are now a few words that he appears to understand from lots of different people - most obviously, if someone says 'talee' ('head') (and if he is in the mood to play) he will put his hands up onto his head. More impressively, if I say 'talee' and he touches his head, and then I say 'daddy unde talee' ('daddy's head') he will reach out and pat my head...
Finally, when reading a book the other day, we asked Jeyanth 'where's the doggy'. He confidently put his finger on the doggy on the page, and then turned round to point at the (real live) doggies lying on their bean bags.
This post is also probably the first time we've talked about how Jeyanth is trying to learn two languages. We're trying to use language consistently - so body parts are in Tamil, for instance - but no wonder the poor lad is confused :).
Just in the last week or ten days there has been a definite change in the way that Jeyanth plays with a number of his toys, which indicates that he has, quite suddenly, 'got' the idea of orientation; that is, that some toys need to be put, not just in the right place, but the right way round.
As a result, all of a sudden, he can put the coloured rings onto the pole, put his stacking cups inside one another, build a stack several blocks high with his lego (as long as the base is held firmly by a parent), and hang a hoop or teething ring onto an outstretch parental finger. If, for instance, a lego brick is the wrong way round, he will pass it across to his other hand in order to get it the right way up, where two weeks ago he would have just banged the block hopefully on the top of the stack to see if additional force would do the job.
Limiting his ability with the stacking cups and the rings now is that he still doesn't seem to have any idea of relative size: he'll equally happily try to but the bigger cups inside the smaller ones...
Jeyanth had his first taste of rice and curry the other day. Whenever I cook, I always rescue some food for Jeyanth before I season it for us, to spare him from my fairly 'robust' preference for salt and spice. However, a couple of days ago, though he had finished his own dinner, Jeyanth insisted on tasting some food off my plate - which was a good old fashioned Sri Lankan meal that my mum had cooked for us. So I offered him a mouthful, trying to minimise the fairly fatal curry sauce, and to my surprise, he really liked it. Well, at least enough to come back for a few more mouthfuls before he lost interest.
And there's more evidence that though Jeyanth may look like a white-boy, he's got deep dravidian roots. We blogged a while ago, that Jeyanth had mastered the art of putting pre-loaded spoonfuls of food into his mouth. This still holds for porridge and dessert, but he refuses to have any cutlery during his main courses. The only acceptable mode of having meat and veg with potatoes or rice or pasta, is to have a parent make a little marble-sized ball of food and place it in front of him, and for him to pick it up and put it in his mouth, having first threatened to throw it over the side of the high chair, this last still being his favourite 'tease-the-parent' game.
This is a note for historical purposes.
Jeyanth had his first birthday party on Sunday the 18th. It was a 'small' family affair - small only by Tamil standards, because on inviting immediate family (including families of 2 God-siblings Satara and Jahan), the head count got to 24!
We went to church first thing, it was 'Great Sunday of Sharing', so all the congregations that worshipped in our church building joined up for a single service, so we had the Arabs, the Tongans, the South Africans, the Philippinos and the eclectic McCredie crowd as well, for a standing room only, and truly spectacular service. The reason I note this, was that sadly, we had to leave an hour and twenty minutes into the service, when the speaker was just being introduced! However, Jeyanth seemed to enjoy the multi-lingual singing at the service, clapping along and jiggling in time.
And back at home, we had planned a laid back outdoor BBQ, given the drought and the unseasonally warm (ie 24C) winter weather we'd been having. Needless to say, Sunday was cold and windy, with thunderstorms in the air. However, having 24 people (including 3 small children) inside the house turned out OK after all. Jeyanth refused to have his midday nap, preferring to party straight through the day! Despite being born to two fairly anti-social parents, Jeyanth appears to be a natural-born party-animal. He was on the go the whole afternoon, either on the rug with the other kids and the toys, or trundling around scoring cuddles, kisses and food off various adults.
Though Chris and I have entertained many many times after Jeyanth was born, it has always been in the evenings, after J was in bed. For some reason, we found this Sunday more taxing than say, having 60 people over for my parents 40th anniversary. I mean, its not like BBQ's are particularly hard to do! It was much more the tension of wanting to make sure that Jeyanth was enjoying himself, but being caught up in hosting duties. But as we mentioned, it was needless worry, since Jeyanth was completely relaxed and genuinely seemed to enjoy having heaps of people showering heaps of attention on him. So maybe we might dare celebrate other birthdays - rather than adopt Chris' proposed resolution to ban all birthday parties till J was eighteen, and then leave town for the weekend after handing over a cheque.
Other things to note for posterity. Jeyanth had a Teddy Bear cake made by Ammamma, and had his first ever taste of chocolate when he had a piece of it. He also had his first ever taste of ice cream (vanilla), which he screwed up his face and spat out on first attempt, but then grew worryingly fond of. After a thoroughly successful day, Jeyanth went to bed early, hardly having had any dinner (blame that chocolate cake), but having a big bottle of milk and a nice warm bath.
Ammamma tells us that yesterday, while Sureka and I were both at work, Jeyanth did his first proto-steps: standing up unassisted, he moved one foot before plopping back down onto his bottom. Now while it is true that if there is anyone who interprets Jeyanth's activities more optimistically that his parents, it is his Ammamma, Jeyanth clearly is almost ready to take his first step - a couple of times over the weekend I saw him standing, leaning slightly forwards, and moving his weight around as if he was trying to work out how to get his foot to move, but then deciding that a good crawl was in order instead.
There is now a definite danger that Jeyanth is going to take his first steps for his Ammamma and not his parents. Sureka and I are sure that the first time we see him walk it will be in the bath, since he's far more active and adventurous there than anywhere else!
Photos from Jeyanth's 366th day, and some early, Jeyanth-centric ones from his Birthday BBQ are now up. Will blog later about the BBQ and put up more photos.
Have we mentioned that Jeyanth recently (last few weeks) got the hang of cuddly toys? He will now crawl across the room to get hold of, and give a big hug to, his Christmas Bear, or Eric the Snowman, or Paambu the Snake, or Chicken the, um, Chicken. Or, better still, several of them at the same time.
Reading through Sureka's post about Jeyanth at age one, I thought that the only thing missing was something about the way he laughs, and the things he laughs at.
For a while it's been possible to make Jeyanth squeal with laughter with physical stuff - grabbing him, tickling him, throwing him into the air, rubbing your head against his tummy, that sort of thing. A little while back I wrote about how he had also played a trick on me, and laughed about it. I've also noticed a couple other sorts of things that now make him laugh (I don't know for sure how long these have made him laugh, I didn't really think about it until I started this entry):
Parental silliness. If I put a box or shoe on my head, Jeyanth finds it highly amusing. Even more so if I put a toy in my mouth (which is interesting, because he puts toys in his own mouth all the time...).
Playing chase. This is mostly with Amma - if she gets down on all fours and starts crawling after Jeyanth he will shout with laughter, and crawl away, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to see if she is still chasing him.
I can't think of a more pleasing sound in the world than Jeyanth laughing. It certainly beats him screaming inconsolably for an hour in the middle of the night. About which more, perhaps, later.
What an amazing year! Life without Jeyanth seems inconceivable, and yet, it's all gone so quickly. I can think of nothing but cliché piled on cliché to comment on this occasion.
The day itself passed fairly uneventfully. I had to work; Jeyanth, Daddy, Ammamma and Thaatha spent the day together, doing normal things like going to the park to play. Ammamma did make Jeyanth a little carrot cake, which he had for afternoon tea. The day also brought on an increasingly runny nose, indicating the onset of yet another winter cold - but Jeyanth is now a veteran, colds barely slow him down.
We will have a family BBQ next weekend to celebrate his birthday properly - he gets to eat chocolate cake then! We will report more of that event after it happens.
Given that we haven't blogged recently, it seems appropriate that we note some of the new things that Jeyanth has learned recently. He is now learning so fast, that it really is hard to keep track of new things.
Well, Ammamma now owes Chris a dollar, since Jeyanth is still not walking un-aided. He is very fond of pushing various semi-mobile things around (cardboard boxes, his high chair etc) and walking behind them, but he hasn't decided to strike out on his own.
He has recently become a lot more vocal. I think it may have been accelerated by having his grandparents around pretty much full time since Chris' accident. There's a lot more talk going on, and Jeyanth is gamely joining in. Still no distinct words, but lots of very intentional sound-making. Ah, except of course that he now chooses to wail 'ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma' when he wakes up at 2 in the morning, which is MUCH harder to ignore.
He has also learnt to understand a lot of verbal clues given to him by an adult. He will now, when he feels like co-operating, put his hand on his head when asked to (in tamil), pat you when you say "poor xxx" (where xxx= Ammamma, Dibley etc), stick his hands in the air when we get to the 'POP' in the 'Pop goes the weasel' etc. Most of these are again Ammamma specials.
The most interesting leap in learning however, has been his grasp of how how his body parts correspond to your body parts. For a while now, he has known what socks are for, and will attempt to put them on his own feet by sort of jamming them at his foot with some degree of intent. But a couple of days ago, I took his socks off, and as I was sitting cross-legged in front of him, he picked up his socks, and tried to put them on my bare feet. Pretty cool eh? And then yesterday, I was making him giggle by tickling the undersides of his feet, and he quite deliberately leaned over and tried to tickle the soles of my feet. This must sound awfully lame - but for all of you who remember the inert carpet slugs that our children were when they were born, the cognitive capabilities of a 1 year old really are exciting.
His increasing fine motor control seems to be strongly linked to an increase in desire for autonomy. He is now very reluctant to eat anything that he can't feed himself (except dessert, where Jeyanth compromises control for efficency, and lets us shovel the stuff into an almost perpetually open mouth). He's also learnt to stack cups and put rings onto the stem of the ring-stacking toy.
He's discovered pointing with an index finger, and will accompany it with an 'nnnhhhhh' which loosely translates as an order. However, it is hard to be impressed when you're tryng to settle him in the middle of the night, and he's standing in the cot, pointing at the door, doing very insistent 'nnnnhhhh' sounds!
And finally, as mentioned before, he is doing text-book 12month old behaviour, and has started waking up in the middle of the night and crying for attention. He doesn't do it every night, and most of the time, he will just go back to sleep if you tuck him back in. Every now and again, he will decide that we all need to be awake for a couple of hours and keep up a good whinge. All the books say that this is typical of this age as they actually start remembering their dreams, and can get very confused at waking up alone. They are also of course, learning to excercise their own will.
Hmm, better stop now, as this is a very long blog
Today is Jeyanth's first birthday. I'll want to write about this, but my finger is still a bit of a problem for typing any significant amount of text... so what I'll do is come back and edit this entry later.
This post is not really about J, but about his Daddy...
Friday morning we were just off to go shopping, and then perhaps to the park (it was a lovely day). I put Jeyanth into his carseat and slammed the door. Somehow, my left little finger got on the wrong side of the door and the next thing I knew I was looking in mild disbelief at the bloody stump that had seconds before been my fingertip. Opening the door again I found the top half centimeter of the finger, nail and all, hanging off the edge of the door.
A couple of phone calls later (one to get Sureka to come home, and one to the emergency services) I was off to hospital with the end of my finger in a little ziptop bag, leaving Jeyanth with a neighbour until Sureka got there (she arrived about five minutes later, having shown only limited respect for the motorway speed limit). It turned out that the tip could not be reattached; indeed, they had to take a little more of the finger off to suture it closed cleanly. I'm not sure exactly, 'cause the dressing doesn't come off for a week, but I think I'll end up with the finger about 1cm shorter than it was, which will make playing guitar an interesting challenge, not to mention typing (which, of course, I'm currently doing one handed).
The highlight of the hospital stay was certainly talking to the plastic surgeon before I went in: on hearing what model of car it had been (a Mazda 121 - Sureka takes the Subaru to work) he exclaimed "you got bitten by a girly car?", and suggested I should take the fingertip home and feed it to the dogs...
Anyway, I came home this lunchtime, and the morphine has worn off, so I'm getting from panadeine to panadeine with doses of chocolate cake...