July 21, 2008

Neil is 22 months old now. He has already taken a big vacation – to Alaska, no less! – in June and then been on a long weekend trip to San Francisco. He does really well during travel (wonder where that bug came from!!). He loved the cruise we took to Alaska and behaved much better than we had hoped. We took a helicopter ride in Juneau and he truly enjoyed that! We thought he would be terrified but he surprised us!

He’s started talking a riot now – he says whole sentences and interlaces English and Kannada. He says cute stuff like “Come elli” and “go alli” and “Kodu me” which we find very adorable (which parent doesn’t!). But the best part is we can communicate with him like he’s a little adult! Its amazing. He’s also grown extremely close to his cousin, Esha. He seems to adore her – which makes me feel ever so strongly about having another child and a sibling for him.

January 28, 2008

Neil is almost a year and a half old. There are so many heart-warming moments and drive-me-up-the-wall-I-want-to-pull-out-my-hair moments as well! This morning, Neil wanted the Vaseline jar that I told him he cannot have. He started howling and throwing a tantrum. This has become very common these days – if he cannot have something or if we tell him it’s not for him, he starts howling and throwing a fit. I kept repeating that he cannot have it, and he stopped crying, toned down his voice and said “peass” which means “please” (plus he signed the word please in his baby sign language)! It was so very adorable! I had to fight my emotions hard to stay put and continue to say no to him! That’s what parenting is all about, I suppose!

Last week (Jan 21-24), Neil had very high fever. It was the first time, his fever went up to 104.4. Almost scared us into going to the ER but we didn’t. He was doing fine in terms of his day-to-day behavior and activity. He did get lethargic for 2 days and stayed clinging on to me. Poor guy! Just the week before on Jan 11 when he completed 16 months, I stopped giving him the bottle for his night-time milk and middle-of-the-night milk feeding. I switched to offering him the sippy cup. He didn’t protest too much but reduced his intake of milk. I am being very persistent about this although it breaks my heart to see him not have even 16 oz of milk in a day. He did start sleeping much better but the last 2 days he has been waking up a lot at night. I wonder if its because he is hungry! I am contemplating giving his last feed for the day in the bottle and cutting out the middle-of-the-night feeding and then slowly scaling back. No one said parenting was going to be easy! It’s a tough choice!

Month of October, 2007

October 1, 2007: Today Neil moved to the “mobile monkeys” section in day care – kids here are more mobile and Neil gets to do a lot more: walk around, eat more adult like food, do arts & crafts. I think Neil is enjoying it although he is definitely more clingy and cries a lot when I drop him off.

Neil got better at day care when I sent him full time for a week while mom and dad were visiting Cleveland. He cried less when I dropped him off and Sri’s trick of walking him into the day care (instead of carrying him) seemed to work pretty well too.

I started taking Neil to the potty every morning. He responded to it very well for the first two weeks or so. But then, off late, he refuses to do it in the potty. For that matter his whole cycle of eating-pooping-sleeping has taken a turn for the worse. Every day is a new time-table. Its challenging. But there are cute moments. Like last night (October 30, 2007), after having his dinner, he pooped. And I told him that he needed to use the potty and to let Mamma know that he needed to go. After I said that he headed straight for the restroom where I usually take him! It was cute – I had to tell him that it was too late and we would go upstairs and give him a bath instead. Promptly he started scaling the stairs.

He’s also become a hoodlum at the day care. I saw him physically pummel another kid and snatch a toy from her!

Month of September, 2007

Neil turned 1 on September 11, 2007! A full one year! Its been an amazing journey to see him grow into this amusing little tyke! We celebrated his birthday in the Miramar overlook park on September 15^th. Right after his first birthday he started walking with so much more confidence and vigor!

September 21, 2007: Neil went in for his 1 year doc visit today. 3 shots – Flu was an extra one today – he also got MMR and Varicella vaccinations! Neil screamed bloody murder before he even got the shots – it almost seemed like he took one look at the needle and knew what was coming! But his screams lasted for only about 50 seconds – as soon as the band-aid was snapped on his thigh, he stopped screaming. He also didn’t yell when the nurse inserted the needle in his arm to do a TB test. So I guess all in all, he did pretty good. He weighed in at 20 lbs 5 oz (he is now in the 20^th percentile! Woohoo!) and measured 31 and 3/4^th inches long (the 95^th percentile). The nurse did a double take on his length but he is one tall skinny guy! Since he passed the 20 lbs and 1 year criteria, he now gets to sit in a front facing car-seat! And does he love it!

September 29, 2007: Sri bathed Neil for the very first time and did an amazing job doing it! J

Month of August, 2007

August 1, 2007: What a nightmare it has been today! I picked Neil up from daycare and he seemed his normal self. They had been reporting loose bowel movements for 2-3 days now but I didn’t take particular notice. Neil didn’t have his night-time meal as he usually does but that didn’t really bother me till I finished bathing him and while dressing him up, he threw up! Once I finished cleaning him, re-dressing him, taking him downstairs, I gave him his bottle – he drank some and threw up again! He did this 2 more times and I nearly lost it! He threw up in the bedroom, on the sheets, in the kitchen, in the bathroom and I was nearly hysterical! I didn’t know what to do. I called the doc’s office and they told me that it could be stomach flu. The virus was making the rounds in the county and that I should let him rest without feeding him anything. I stayed up most of the night watching over him because he continued to gag in his sleep and throw up fluids! It was tough to watch him struggle and suffer.

August 24, 2007: Neil took 6 steps in day care today! His first attempt at walking! Over the weekend (aug 25, 26) he tried taking 2-3 steps at a time, Its pretty neat to see him stand on his own and try to walk. His grandparents are back in town and Neil has taken a fancy to his Grandpa! Its amazing to see him hover around him all the time and to see my Dad enjoy all the attention he’s getting from Neil! Neil is now sleeping in the full-size mattress in his room. He sleeps much better now and most of the days does a 8-9 hour stretch after which he wakes up to drink milk and then goes back to sleep for 1-2 hours. So it’s not bad at all.

Month of July, 2007

Neil now recognizes words like “Bye-bye”, “ball”, “clap”, “hi-five” – he responds to these words with actions! He also learnt to climb up the stairs (in the first week of July in PIT) and about 2 weeks later learnt to climb down the stairs. He’s quite a master at it now!

Month of June, 2007 - Continued

Neil was sick this month – his first ear infection. Neil seemed feverish on June 1^st, but we thought it was simply a by-product of his cold. When the fever hovered between 98 and 101 for 4 days, I called the doctor’s office where they told me that if the fever goes up over 100, to bring him in. We took him to the doctor’s office on 7^th where he was diagnosed with ear infection. He hadn’t shown any symptoms like tugging his ear or reduced appetite, so the diagnosis was a surprise! I was a little bummed but Neil seemed to be doing just fine. He was prescribed a 10-day dose of Amoxicillin (an antibiotic). Also, I learned that Tylenol should be given only when the fever is above 100 or if the baby is in pain (to reduce the feeling of pain); but for fevers below 100, there is no need to give Tylenol.

Neil started losing his appetite the second day after he started taking the antibiotic. It was sad to see him like that but he recovered pretty fast and by mid-week (around June 14^th) he was back to being himself. The first few days back at the day care he was very clingy and fussy. But by the end of the week, his appetite and his good nature was back! I was so relieved – all this night waking up and looking after him caused me to get really sick. I ran a temperature of 102 and was diagnosed with sinus infection! Boy, oh, boy, it was getting to be an interesting month of being a mommy all by myself i.e. no help from anyone else! I recovered after a bout of antibiotic as well. Sri managed to work from home during the week that Neil was sick, so that certainly helped out.

After all this, Neil is still not sleeping very well through the night. I have tried all kinds of variations in his schedule and diet but to no avail. I have moved his dinner time closer to bed time, added formula for his pre-bedtime feeding along with nursing, given him a lovey, a soft blankie – all have been failures so far. He manages to sleep through the night for 2-3 out of the seven days in a week. The rest of the days he has a very erratic schedule. He also does not sleep very well during the day in the day-care.

Apart from that his progress has been fantastic. He is now eating more adult-like food – he loves to eat bread, chapatti, rice – anything he can munch on. He has graduating to eating yogurt and cheese. Its really fun to see him eat all this. He also demands food now – which is quite entertaining. He is beginning to exhibit quite a temper and his personality is starting to show. He moves around a lot and tries to stand up quite a bit. He has also started pulling the cabinet doors and drawers in the kitchen. Time to get those child locks on, I suppose!