Hmm.. What is happening?

I am really so worried about Nikki these days. I do not know if it is my ability to find something to worry about if there is nothing to worry, but I have kind of become a chronic worrier. Whether he will grow (he is small for his age, not even 20 pounds), whether he will grow teeth(he has only 2), whether he will walk(he walked in India for couple of days, completely went back to crawling when we came here, has started walking again but just sporadically when he feels like it). And he is getting obstinate day by day, especially with matters related to eating.

He talks, his vocaublary is unbelieavable. He tries to repeat whatever we say. He succeeds sometimes but makes reasonable attempts everytime. Sample : DH calls him "Bayanthaankolli butchu" (meaning timid butchu, butchu is one of his nick names), he will say "Bayandhee buu". He does not like to wear socks, shoes, jacket, hat, etc. When I force him into shoes, he would say "shee kaltu" (remove shoes). The same goes for anything that he wants to be removed : ox (socks), cheen(chain), beit(car seat belt, high chair belt). "Chaapa"(for eating), baahunda(telegu for are you doing good), takkaayee(tomato), thanni(water), ethu(lift me in telegu), indha(take it), kanom(if he is not able to find something), diipaa (diaper). The one I love is "baati" or "baatil" meaning he wants bottle. He asks for bottle when he gets up from bed. If he is not that hungry then it will be "daddy" (sometimes called "diddy"). He has become his father's son these days (he already was one, but it is growing in exponential proportions). There was an intense "anti-amma" phase in the past week and it is becoming better.

The one that I miss most in the past month is him losing his baby face. He now has the boyish look, facial hair(along side his temples) and thick eyebrows. He is a clone of his father, more so everyday. I sometimes would think, when Nikki grows up, will DH and Nikki look like the father/son pair in the Tamil movies where the hero(sarath kumar/vijay kanth) plays dual role. I crack up laughing at the thought of it.

And he finally has got adjusted to day care. He still cries, but stops the moment I leave the room. He has a girl friend Kayla whom he chases around all day. He doesn't starve there. He has yogurt and munches some rice puffs for lunch.

And I am not going to talk about his eating habits now. It warrants a separate post by itself and I will need all/any wisdom that you guys have to help me find a way through this. I dread his mealtimes more than him. It drains me both physically and mentally. I don't know what went wrong. See I am starting to ramble. Got some errands to do. Will come back and do a post on it.

Nikki at 10 months

Nikki has grown leaps and bounds in the past 2 months. Not in terms of height/weight, but in terms of his development. The only physical growth happening with Nikki is his hair growth, he has lots of bouncy, silky, soft hair. Paati and Amma are more than happy to dress up his hair in pig tails everyday. I tried my hand at plaiting once too. [Itching to post pictures, DH not relenting yet.]

He was manageably mobile until about last month, he used to roll around and swim to reach for things. He has learnt to crawl on all fours, something I thought he would never do, because he was such a lazy ass. He can very easily pull himself up to a stand, and walk by himself holding onto the sectional in the living room. Sometimes he would just cruise with one hand on the sofa. He would never sit on his bottoms, will be mostly on his knees(vajrasana). He can climb up the stairs on his own, it happened about 10 days back. I was sitting on the stairs leading upto attic from the living room and he was trying to come to me, I thought he would just pull himself up to a stand holding onto the steps. He started climbing as though he has been doing it for years. He took 3 steps and started looking back for security, just when Paati came behind him. He climbed all the 15 steps on his own with Paati just escorting him from the behind.

He continues to babble, babble and babble non-stop. He used to call me “andha”, the past couple of weeks he calls me “annththa”, that is very close to Anitha, almost there. My heart just swells with pride whenever he calls me like this, the first couple of times I had tears. Paati is called “ambaa” or “imbaa”. Dad is called out for in loud shrieks of “yayy…”. Sometimes “dei” too. Oft repeated words: “amma”, “drriinttrraaa”, “dhinthaa”, “boommbbaa”, “thathaatha”, “tirrra”. As usual, when he is frustrated, he will go “yayyaayayaaaaa” and “ammammamamama”.

He will start saying and waving “tata” on his own without any initiation when he thinks that we are going out/ he is being taken out. This does not happen always though. And you cannot make him say/wave “tata” by force. For that matter, you cannot force him to do anything, cannot shove down an extra spoon of cereal, not an extra sip of formula, wont wave bye on demand, wont say antha on demand. The way he babbles will be almost like talking, replete with animated expressions, raising/lowering of voice and arm movements. Half the time, he does not talk/babble softly, he will be yelling at the top of his voice, you can see veins on his temples protruding out. None of us shout or scream like the way he does, don’t know where he learnt it, probably gets it from his gene pool (you know where). If you have seen the movie Baasha, imagine Rajini saying “oru thadavai sonna 100 thadavai sonna mathiri” spinning index fingers of both hands. He would keep doing that raising his voice with every “aaiii”,” yeeyyy”, any attempt to make a conversation with him during those times will be met with more yelling. He will be standing his legs well parted like a warrior ready for a sword fight, wagging his fingers and hands up & down, frowning his eyebrows, yelling at the top of his voice while tightening his face muscles and stiffening his whole body, as though he wants to scare the hell out of us. It is so much fun to watch. If we try to raise our voice more than his, he would stamp down his feet with a big thud and will raise his voice more. I will stop, fearing he will hurt his throat. Going by all this, I am not sure what future holds out for him: 1) “Nattamai” (the village chief seen in Tamil movies, pronouncing final verdicts on unsuspecting citizens), 2) speaker in one of the tamil talk shows (mainly pattimandrams), 3) if he gets to learn some civility probably he can become a lawyer.

He drools, drools and drools non-stop. I don’t know where he manufactures all that drool, his liquid intake is nowhere near his drool output. The white beds for the teeth can be seen clearly and the gums feel hard, guess he will sprout teeth in couple of weeks. You know what, the BESTest thing that happened in the past 2 months, he kissing sometimes on demand, but mostly I will be caught unawares. Amma was the only soul for whom this BESTest treat was reserved, recently paati was added to the list. Daddy has not been blessed yet, he should spend more time with him. It is not just a wet sloppy kiss, he will say “uvvvvaa” while planting his kiss and then look at you and smile while pulling your hair in all directions. If your day was blessed, when you ask him “umma kudu”, His Highness will readily oblige, melting and taking you to heaven instantly.

These days it is such a pain dressing him up after a bath. The moment you seal his diapers and reach for his shirt, he will promptly pull his diaper open and will give you a broad smile, so instead of feeling like shouting at him, you will start cuddling him. And you will spend 20 minutes dressing him up.

And he can clap, started about a week back, not on demand again. Been teaching him body parts, no luck yet I think. He sometimes pokes my eyes sometime after I say “kannu”, so not sure if he knows them. There is so much going on, I don’t think any amount of words can do justice to what is happening in our lives. He can stand on his own for about 30 seconds, the scared look on his face when he does it is absolutely priceless. I want to write more, but this has been in my drafts for nearly 10 days now, the longer it sits there, the lengthier it is going to become. So I am stopping here, anything interesting will be published as a new post.

I love you da my chella kutti, more than anything in this world. As I write this, you are sleeping with your Daddy. You are being virtually hugged, kissed and bitten by me. Sometimes I feel like running you through the blender, gulp down every drop of your juice and have you recreated in my womb, just for myself. I don’t want to share you with anyone. UMMMA.

News...

Really bad news: Looks like our India trip might get postponed anywhere between couple of weeks to couple of months due to many unforeseen reasons. ** sob ** ** sob**.

Bad news: We are down to the 3rd from the 5th percentile for his weight.

Good news: Ped says "she is not unhappy with his growth". Despite the drop in the percentile, he has gained weight(few ounces). His height is still hovering around 50-60 th percentile. Stool test results so far are good, there is one more blood work she wants to have done to rule out malabsorption. Slow weight gain is attributed to his activeness (the rolling paper on the exam table was completely crumpled up by the time we left), genes and allergy.

Will he grow?

In the past couple weeks, we’ve met lot of babies who are within +/- 6 months age bracket when compared to Nikki. And all of them look so big (at least tall), in spite of being small babies at birth. And this 9 pound, 21.7 inch baby looks so minuscule when compared to them. I know I shouldn’t be comparing, but I really can’t help. Is there anything I am doing wrong? Is there something I could have done better?

He is at the 10th percentile for his weight, has been there for the past 3 months. The growth curve started plunging deep downwards when he was 3 months. From birth, 90th percentile --> 80 --> 65 --> 40 --> 25 -->10. I hope to God that it doesn’t decline any further.

He is not a very poor eater. His hunger is almost always good, sometimes poor and sometimes very good. We started him on solids when he was 4 months, rice cereal once a day. By 5 months oats cereal was also introduced and he started having cereal twice a day. Around 5 ½ months, he was given the taste of fruits / vegetables. Carrots, sweet potatoes, apple sauce, bananas, peach. He ate bananas with interest for a couple of days. He loved his cereals (still loves) , but did not take to fruits/veggies well (not yet). We keep introducing him to fruits/veggies regularly, no luck yet.

We couldn’t introduce lot of variety in food to Nikki because of his eczema.The allergy tests are confusing to say the least. The skin tests and blood tests contradict each other for some food items. The blood tests tell he is allergic to almost everything other than Turkey, cod fish and carrot. Skin test for dairy was a clean negative. Allergist and the Ped are confused, they say he is an un-usual kid and we are going to repeat the skin tests again in a couple of weeks.

We met with the doc just 2 weeks back for his 9th month checkup and she does not seem to be very concerned about his growth curve. She usually is, but not this time. She told us they call this as a “Catch-down growth” pattern. Her reasoning is that he has never lost weight, he has been gaining albeit slowly and continues to follow the 10th percentile curve. His genes are catching up with him, he would grow up to be lanky like DH is what she says. I used to be convinced by that, but not now. Nikki is not a tall baby anymore. I have a feeling that the nurse did not measure him correctly. I have this doubt because just 1 week back, we had been to the Allergist and there he was measured 26.5 inches and suddenly in 7 days, he shows 28 inches at the Ped’s office. This cannot be true, he has not grown out of his clothes in the past 2-3 months. Hmm. I am really getting paranoid with his growth. I am going to buy a tape to measure him.

We (I & Paati) are trying to be creative in preparing food with the limited choices we have. He being a picky eater also does not help. His typical diet in a day would include 2 servings of ½ cup cereal, 1 serving Paruppu/Nei/keerai saadham, about 15 – 18 oz milk, 1 cup yogurt. He also has snacks - teeny bits of home made fruits / vegetables, shredded cheese any other finger food we like him to try. Sometimes we try home made soups and juices with him too. These snacks sometimes find their way into his mouth, sometimes don’t. We do it just for the sake of introducing new tastes/foods. Being a staunch vegetarian that I am, I am even ready to feed him meat if he will put on weight. I tried chicken with him a couple of times, his teeth are not out yet, so tried shredded pieces once and ground chicken another time. He did not like it much, only a couple of spoons and he started spitting it on my face. Well, I keep trying something or the other, not every day, at least every other day. Is there anything amiss in the way we are feeding Nikki?

I remember those days in the 1st 2 months of Nikki’s life when he looked like a poster baby, I couldn’t even hold his head while nursing because of immense wrist pain caused by De Quervain’s Syndrome and I would wish if he had born a couple of pounds lesser. After the first month visit, in one of the most painful moments, I even wished his weight gain slowed. But that was only a fleeting thought that occurred when all of my post partum troubles(that entails a post by itself) would play against me and would prevent me from even enjoying my baby. My wrist pain was so bad that I would hold Nikki only for feeding. I feel so guilty now for thinking like that then. Big SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Will he grow? Will he remain the way he is now? I know I am being stupid, but I do get such irrational fears. Have I become complacent and tired to try new things after the umpteen doctor visits and allergy tests? Should I spend more time with him, trying out new food? Will I do a better job if I stayed home? I know he gets the best care in the world with my Amma, but I cannot help thinking if things would be better if I stayed home. I am confused, GUILTY & tired. That was the reason there were no updates on my blog. And our trip to NY, NJ last weekend.

Month 8 update...

This is the first developmental update about Duddu from me. I would love to post pictures, but still in dilemma whether to make them public or not.

Vocabulary : He can clearly say amma,anna,ambbaa,imbbaa, and can babble a lot. I mean a lotttttttttt. Sometimes I ask him to shutup, he is that talkative. He also makes sounds that we make when we talk to him. When we show a passing vehicle, or ask him if he wants to go out, we say "durru(a) polama?" (can we go out, "durr" in our car?). He keeps saying "turrrrrraa" when he sees a car, and most of the times just by himself. He also makes "pppprrrrr" sound that we make by pursing our lips and let them kind of vibrate.

Communication: He can clearly communicate his frustration, anger, and want by beautiful expressions and the tone of his wails. It is very funny when he expresses frustration. It is not just wailing, he starts saying "ammam mammam mammma ammam mammam mammma" like somebody has beat him. Or sometimes it is "yayayayyya yayya". All of us burst into laughter when he does this. He has been very stingy with smiling (like DH) until about 6 months. I don't know how he found his funny bone, these days he bursts into laughter often. When we say rhyming words, mostly words with thud sound(what we call as "vallinam" in Tamil) he laughs. Funny sounds and funny faces make him laugh. He can wave bye-bye, though he doesn't know what it means yet(I think so). I used to wave "bye" to him when I left for work in the morning, and a couple of weeks later, he started waving hands whenever he saw me. I did not understand it first, later when I understood, it really made me sad.

Eating: He is still on cereals with occasional fruits. Mom has got some ragi from India, got to try it in the coming weeks. We have also started him on pulses from the past 10 days. Making him drink milk is the hardest thing, the first 1 -2 ounces go in fast(5 mins), and to make him have the rest takes an hour. I make it a point to have my breakfast & dinner with him by my side and he evinces lot of interest in what we eat. He picks up food from our plate and does NOT put into his mouth immediately(unlike other stuff that he puts straight into his mouth). He holds it for a while, looks at it from all sides, smells it(he takes it close to his mouth and keeps it there, I think he is smelling) and takes very few food items to his mouth(potato chips, apples). I love the expression on his face when he makes faces when tasting a new food item. Mom is looking for a auspicious day to start him on rice. Hopefully in another week or so.

Gross motor: He can sit up on his own close to half-hour. He still does not crawl, not even make attempts to crawl. He can pull himself upto a stand with very little support. Stands on his own holding the sofa for support and makes a couple of steps. He loves walking. He makes us help him walk, we have to hold him under his hands and he will walk around the home, wherever he likes he will bend his knees to pick up his object of interest. He used to roll around a month back, but he has stopped doing it now.

Fine motor: He has mastered crude pincer grasp. He can pick up small things and is trying to hold very small things. He researches intricate designs on chains and ear-rings.

Sleeping: He still needs to be rocked and sung to sleep. Always needs someone by his side to continue sleeping. If he wakes during sleep and sees no one by his side, he lets out a scream like somebody is strangling him. Wakes up 2-3 times in the night for feeding.

Misc:
He is very scared by the whistle sound from the cooker.
He stands up while bathing and these days gets bathed like adults.
He loves playing with empty cartons.

It is like someone transformed my baby overnight with a magic wand, from a tiny being that eats,sleeps and cries to a interactive,expressive,fun-loving explorer. Hope he does not grow very fast. Rather I have enough time to absorb and freeze all that is happening into sweet memories that I can enjoy later in my life, when my baby ventures out to have his own life. When he does not need his mommy anymore.