There is always something new to get used to when one has children. If at first When Jonathan was born I had to get used to being a mom for the first time, including sleepless nights and the thought that someone is totally dependent on me, now when he is almost one year old I have to get used to the noise from electronic toys and boom boxes, the fact that teething babies tend to drool a lot, and crumbs in every place and especially when he eats!
Jonathan is growing two new teeth, this time up in front. This will make the total of his teeth rise to...4! Although he has only four teeth, he books say a baby his age should chew their food. Its only really soft things, but still Jonathan chews with his gums rather well. And so, like the good mom I try to be, I have begun to include in his dinner (the only meal he gets at home, the rest are eaten in the day care center) diced tomatoes, scrambled eggs and bread cubes. The idea is he can take the small pieces of food in his own hands and stuff them into his mouth, chew and swallow – in other words, he can eat by himself! I combine the dices food still with ground meat and cooked veggies, to make sure his menu is still wholesome, besides he refuses to eat the ground paste without something to keep his hands busy, I mean if he has nothing in his hands (like diced food) he will try to grab the full spoon I am serving, and I just cant take the mess that that will make! The |give him an empty spoon to play with when you fed him from another spoon” trick no longer works, he just grew out of that one...
I think I can congratulate myself on coping well with the mess that diced food makes. After all its not too bad cleaning it, because one can pick it up! I still refuse to give Jonathan a spoon to feed himself, as I cannot even begin to imagine the mess that it will make!
The food mess is usually pretty focused to the area of his chair, but on occasion he gets a biscuit or a piece of bread to nibble (finger foods) and then he crawls all over the house with it, naturally leaving tracks! I hate that, but my comfort is that we have a cleaning woman once every two weeks, and I can hope she will be able to find the remains of biscuits behind furniture and such...
I think of myself as a relatively clean person, and I like it when things are in order. Therefore it is not easy to learn to lie with a baby at all! My husband (I think like all men) has given me some practice in tidying us after someone else, as had my little brother when we were all living with our parents, but still a baby is just a lot more work and more to tidy up.
I keep the mess under control by keeping the quantity of his things limited. That is, I just replaced Jonathan's baby toys (rattles and shakers) with toys more suitable for his age, rings on a stick, cubes and the one expensive toy he now owns – the boom box! (a toy that makes noises and plays music and has nice lights go on when Jonathan presses various buttons- action, reaction concept). The toys that fit a smaller baby have been either returned to my elder sister, where they came from, or packed up in a high closet. The amount of toys that Jonathan can get to, whether in the living room in his red basin, or in his bedroom in two large drawers is limited and they are easy to stow – tiding up is just dumping them all back in the drawers and basin. Lucky me, Jonathan seams to enjoy the concept of taking things out of their place, but also of returning them. He can sit next to the red basin in the living room, or stand next to a drawer just taking things out and putting them back again. This gives me hope, it looks like a good basis for me to teach him to tidy up after himself. Usually tidy up after he goes to bed at night, braving out the mess and scattered toys all day, but I let him see me return books onto a shelf, so he can get the idea of tidying up.
Another thing I need to get used to is that he is growing! Growing means that he is changing, not only in size but in other behavior. Lately he seems to fall asleep less lightly, and he needs not only a bottle but also my increased presence. I still try to get him to sleep in bed and not on my arms, because I think its a bad habit and he is also getting heavy! His growing also means changing all his clothes, especially now that there is a season change. My elder sister and I have just traded clothes again, me returning small and summer outfits and she giving me larger winter ones. Thank God she has a large house and can stash all this baby stuff! The stroller we brought, in the hope it will support us until Jonathan walks is also, regretfully proving too small, and we have to get used to the idea of buying a new one. Luckily his birthday is coming up and we will be able to finance this as a gift from my parents. We will still have to finance the new car seat though...
another anecdote on growing... Jonathan is a rather tall baby (even statistically) and its kind of nice to see that he is taller than his cousin, who is a boy 6 weeks older than Jonathan. Considering the height of the two fathers, it is not surprising that Jonathan is taller...
As Jonathan wails near me, complaining that his daddy will not let him grab onto an empty yogurt cup, I admit I also have to get used to Jonathan advertising his lack of satisfaction in the form of wails and cries. I know this is his way of talking at this stage, but it still can be annoying sometimes.
As his first year is coming to an end, I have to admit I also gt used to writing this blog! But this was intended as a one year project, so I have to start thinking about it's future too...
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