 When I'm Hungry
In
the first two months after Meghan's born, eating is her life. Right after
she got up from each sleep, the first thing she would do was showing her
hunger. She would be
panting, loudly enough to wake me up in the middle of the night. After
becoming a mother, my usual sound sleep pattern has been totally destroyed,
and I'm prone to be waken up by any tiny little noise coming from Meghan's
crib, which is right next to our bed, let alone her loud panting sound. This
was Meghan's way to call me for feeding.
After
entering the 3rd month,
the cute pantings gradually disappeared.
Instead, during the day, to show her hunger, Meghan started to communicate
to us by groaning, humming or speaking to us, although in a kind of cosmic language.
During the night, she used to groan for feeding, while after about three
months, this has changed too. Without complete wakefulness, she will be
kicking her legs and waving her arms when she is hungry. The drop of her
legs or arms on the crib will make noises, and these noises will wake me up.
If I missed these signs and continued sleeping, she would keep shifting herself
toward the direction of our bed while her head is turning to our direction
and reaching out, because she knows I would come from this way should I feed
her. When I finally wake up, I sometimes found Meghan had already moved all
the way from the middle of the crib to right next to the bumper, with her
face facing and almost touching the bumper. It looks funny and it can always
generate me a tender affection for my daughter.
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Along
with Meghan's growing, I've
found you can't any more treat her like an infant who is content to sit and
watch the world. She wants you to pick her up and show her things or she
fusses. She's also not as transportable as she used to be. In the first a
couple of months, she would doze off so easily in the car seat that she
wouldn't make a peep for any long drive.
Among
all the changes, the most headachy one is the change of her going-to-bed
pattern. She's become not as easily drift off at a bottle as before at
naptimes or bedtimes. She simply doesn't know how to fall asleep on her own.
Therefore, "sleep aids" are used to help her fall
asleep. Except for the pacifier, the car seat, the swing, the stroller and a
bouncy mattress in a sofa bed have all once been used as the sandman.
Recently, I've found the stroller in a sleeping position is the best sleep
aid. Once Meghan was put in there, a few steps with pushing the stroller
along would make her so drowsy as to get off to sleep in minutes.
Unfortunately, Meghan has grown so big that she will not be able to use the
sleeping position of the stroller for much longer time. A matter for being
grateful is Meghan usually doesn't need an aid to fall back to sleep should
she wake up during the night.
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Feeding Battle
Feeding Battless
Shortly
after entering the 4th month, one day Meghan suddenly began to reject the
bottles, although bottle supplement had been introduced since the early
weeks. Meghan would push the bottle nipples right out of her mouth with
her little tongue even when she was hungry. I anxiously searched on the
internet and found this problem had been a common complain from parents
of babies with Meghan's age. Experts believe this is the result of an
awakening of a self-protection instinct, which makes babies only accept liquid
but not solid to prevent them from mistaking foreign objects.
Yet, this has
made bottle feeding a challenge for us in each meal. We have been fighting
these
feeding battles for over a month now, and only recently we feel it's almost
over. Except for the pacifier inducing technique, which worked at the beginning,
we credit most of the victory of the battles to the good timings, that is either feeding on
a very empty stomach or sneaking the bottle in during sleep. These feeding battles
have definitely made another memorable event in the course of Meghan's infancy growth.
Observation
Meghan
has learned a lot about her environment using her eyes and is taking in more
every day. In month three, I could already tell Meghan was seeing a
lot farther. She watched you when you were ten feet away. Now, with
her better neck muscle control, she could turn all the way around to watch
you from ten feet away. She's delighted with everything at this stage.
Interested in the colors and sounds on TV, she could watch TV for an hour
without being fussy. While
Meghan prefers bright, colorful objects, our faces remain her favorite
things to look at. Any facial expression will catch her attention. And she
loves to see our eating most of all. She could be staring at your mouth
for as long as you eat. We now often bring her to our dinning table. When
she sees our eating, she wants our food badly. She puts her hands out,
leans forward and drools. Meghan
also has a great sense of humor. She knows the difference of a normal
behavior and my acting silly. If I pretend I'm going to bite her toes, she
gets giggly.
 Oh, I Have Hands
In
month four, Meghan discovered her hands. She's entertained by looking at
them and enjoys putting them in her mouth. She's also started practicing
newly achieved muscle control by using her hands a lot. She will reach for
objects, pick up toys and put them in her mouth. Putting things in her
mouth is her favorite way of learning about her world.
Meghan
will put her hands around the bottle as if to hold it or hold my finger
when I'm bottle feeding her. She is also able to skillfully transfer
object from one hand to the other. While she likes to grasp everything,
she often doesn't know how to let things go. Several times, she took her
pacifier out of her mouth by mistake and startled herself. She also enjoys
grabbing onto my mouth and nose to explore my face. When she reach out
touching my hand or grasping my finger using her little tiny hand, to me it is
simple joy.
 Rolling Over
February
16, 2003, has become a historic date. That evening, lying on our bed, with
an un-tightened diaper under her, Meghan lifted her left shoulder, arched her back
to lift her chest off the ground, rocked on her stomach, kicked her legs,
and finally flipped herself from front to back landing on her tummy. This
is definitely a milestone in Meghan's growing journey, because rolling
over is the
very first step for her in being able to move herself from place to place.
Ever since
Meghan's 3rd month, I
have been muttering, "when will she be rolling
over?", although I'm quite aware this
normally happens at about five or six
months. I guess I hope my baby be a genius in every way, while that didn't
happen. After entering into the 5th month, I became more anxious and probably talked about
the rolling over more and more often. Then, on the 16th, Meghan did
it several times in the same evening. However, the funny thing is in the
following a few days Meghan seemed to completely forget about her new moves and
never showed us again.
My mom explained it this way, Meghan understood my anxiety and did it only to dispel my misgivings.
As
Meghan gains independence, I know we're entering somewhat more difficult
time. As much as I look forward to her doing all these firsts, I'm
apprehensive about what comes with them. Now for instance, I can't
leave her alone on an elevated surface anymore.
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 F
inally, Solid Food
Taking
the first bite of solid food is another momentous event of Meghan, which we
have been
waiting for since the beginning. At Meghan's four-month checkup, the
baby scale showed she had more than doubled her birth weight. Dr. Yuen
said because she's such a big baby and she's also got a good control of
her head, we could start her on cereal. One
afternoon in the first week of Meghan's 5th month, my mom and I were
excitedly preparing for the first big meal. We mashed the rice cereal in
the milk, put Meghan on a freshly laundered bib and propped her up. After
everything was ready, the brand new little spoon was lifted from the bowl
and delivered the very first bite of solid food into her little mouth. As
the unfamiliar offering made its bizarre first impression on her
inexperienced little tongue and tastebuds, Meghan just let it sit in her
mouth until it eventually slid down out onto her chin, bib and cloth. Wow,
very impressive first bite! We
realized Meghan didn't know how to swallow. When I put the spoon into her
mouth, she started to suck on it as if it was the nipple. Though there
wasn't milk coming out of that spoon, the suckling generated swallow, by
doing which Meghan finally got the remaining of the first bite down her
throat. I see, the swallow was only associated with the suckling, at least
that's the only way Meghan knew. We tried several spoons more, the same
thing happened. And Meghan was eagerly sucking on the spoon. No doubt, she
was very hungry. Frustrated by the too slow spoon deliveries and the fake
spoon suckling, she finally started cry. We
waited for another week before we tried solid food again and this time fully prepared to experience
the same frustration. However, amazingly, Meghan began to
swallow on the very first bite. How did she learn? Only God knows.
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