Yesterday we took our palangga on what might be his last visit to the Children’s Park. His father set him down at once so he is free to go wherever he pleases. It was delightful to watch him run and skip. He has been doing this for a couple of months now, but he seems more sure-footed than ever. What he did for the first time was go up and down a slide all by himself. And he did this not once or twice, but at least six times. On the fourth attempt he learned to land on both feet instead of his rump. We were so proud of him and our cheers and applause naturally spurred him to keep repeating this feat.

This morning I marveled at his other new skills. He can now play with his shape sorters and shape puzzles with a lot of ease. He can say yes, down, and na-na for banana. Most of all he has been very imaginative with his playtime activities, such as climbing over every piece of furniture and emptying drawers and cabinets of its contents so he can re-arrange or pile these on top of each other. He not only understands what I say sometimes, he also follows simple instructions (occasionally when he’s in the mood to impress) like “give it to Mommy” and “come.”

And the hours spent showing him Baby Babble and Little Einstein finally showed results when he started using the sign language for “more” and “all done.”

His favorite channel happens to be Babytv.com, and it’s the only thing that can make him pay attention for 30 minutes. James has a two-minute attention span, and the producers of Babytv knew this about toddlers because every episode average 2 minutes long only.  He has favorite characters like Oliver and the Cuddles, but he gets excited whenever the show features things he has personal experience like balls and shapes. His face literally lit up like a bulb when Pitch and Potch played hide and seek, and shouted “peekabo!” Our favorite activity while watching Babytv.com is singing along, which he is able to do when the lyrics are just la-la-la and na-na-na.

I am so excited to watch him discover not only the environment around him, but more important, what he could do and how he can interact with it.

My baby is not exactly a picky eater, but quickly tires of the same food if served too often. So I not only try to give him a variety of flavor, but also texture. Oriental noodles, pasta, chili, and mung beans are some of his favorites in addition to chicken nuggets (microwaved not deep fried) and chapatti.

We recently discovered what a wonderful and convenient baby food instant couscous can be as well. It’s like corn grits, but made entirely from wheat. We use the Near East brand, bought from the US commissary. All it takes is boiling water. This month I improvised on a recipe for “savoury” couscous, using chicken broth instead of plain boiling water, and adding garlic, onions, and carrots. Yesterday I used one of those cup-of-soup packets, minestrone flavor. I added some tuna flakes and it became my lunch, too. I thought I made enough to last a week (as it usually takes), but my son finished the leftovers the next day.
And it’s so healthy, too. I also tried it with chicken adobo as topping, it was alright.

For snacks he loves to nibble on breadsticks and rice cakes. Of course he also gets Cheerios and wheat biscuits. But I like the fact that breadsticks don’t leave much crumbs, so the Afghan bakeshop that makes these is one of our regular stops on weekends now. And it’s only $1 per dozen.

This is a poster I created using a scrapbook software for the wonderful people at Medicsi, the clinic where I delivered my baby who was born 6 weeks early due to pre-eclampsia. It’s not the first one I made for them, that one was posted at the NICU for months. But this one shows different pictures of him at different ages during the first year of his life. We owe those wonderful people so much, starting with the fertility specialist and his OB-gynecologist wife who run the clinic to the neonatalist who became our son’s pediatrician.

I just learned I have a cousin who works in Abu Dhabi as an NICU nurse. I wished I knew about her when our son was born, because coping with pre-eclampsia, C-section, and postpartum depression while looking after a 1.67 kg preemie was one of the most difficult periods in my life. We just got wifi and having my laptop at my bedside had its pros and cons. Whenever I got a chance I surfed the web for information about premature babies, some encouraging, others disturbing and frightening. When I saw this video on YouTube I just fell to pieces and started bawling.

Now as I look at my son — a very active, headstrong toddler — bully the cook and two security guards into playing with him, I am finally able to watch the video from beginning to end. In spite of the spelling errors it’s very informative and touching. My eyes still watered and my chest tightened as some images revive memories of my own son’s time in the NICU. But I’m thankful that my cousin is observing Mother’s Day by re-posting this video to make me really appreciate everyone who works in NICU.

I’m going to deviate because I thought this song is hilarious. Here are the lyrics, although it’s best to enjoy the video with the banter between the two.

Pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it, nobody says it,

Because they’re pregnant

F-ing son of a gun

You think you’re so deep now
You give me the creeps now
Now that you’re pregnant

I can’t count all the ways how
You speak in clichés now

I can’t wait to hear someone say
Don’t care if it’s brain dead
Don’t care if it’s limbless
If it has a penis

Pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it, nobody says it,
Because they’re pregnant

This zen world you’re enjoying
Makes you really annoying

Bitch, I don’t really care
I was being polite now
Since you have no life now
That you’re pregnant

You say you’re walking on air
You think that you’re glowing
But you had been ho-ing
And now you’re pregnant

You’re just giving birth now
You’re not mother earth now

Pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it, nobody says it,
because they’re pregnant

F-ing son of a gun
You think you’re so deep now
You give me the creeps now
Now that you’re pregnant

We received a lot of good baby and children’s books from friends who are educators. But it is always interesting to find out later which ones our child actually like. His first book was a cloth book called Taggies. He played with these briefly, but I guess the pastel colors were not attractive enough for him. When he was only 3-5 months old he enjoyed the ones with pictures of baby faces. The more colorful, the better — like photos of toddler with bright solid colored shirts and background.

When he turned 6-9 months he was well capable of turning the pages of a board book himself. This time he enjoyed looking at pictures of familiar animals and objects, like puppies and rubber ducks. He didn’t seem to care for texture books, you know, cloth books or those with fake fur. He looked at these because the pictures were attractive, but did not play with the texture.

As he turned one we got more books. The best ones were the play-a-song ones given by our superintendent. There were only 4 pages, but each had the words to a nursery rhyme which also plays when you press the button. It’s musical, interactive, and teaches colors and shapes, because the buttons correspond with the symbol on the pages. We like these so much we bought more for friends and a Christmas book. James loves these so much he keeps playing and dropping these, and the plastic portion that plays the music has to be glued back on so often we ran out of glue. The “Farm Songs” is what I call his good morning book. We play it as soon as he wakes up, starting with “Good Morning To You” to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” These books are published by Peter Haddock Publishing.

His good night book is the biggest surprise. I bought it at a used books shop, and as a last minute purchase for 50 cents. It’s a flap book and a counting book. When we get ready to tuck him in I would get this book, and Jack — the character — would start counting the things he needs to go to bed, such as 2 fluffy slippers. My son would lift the flap with the number 2 to see an illustration and the words underneath. He would get so excited that I would have to read fast. Sometime he would insist that I read it in the morning, because he enjoys the participatory nature of the book. Unfortunately I don’t know where to buy the other books in the series, because even Amazon does not have new ones in stock.

We also bought small flap books, the kind he can carry and hold himself. When we traveled to Thailand and the US I made sure one or two were in his diaper bag. These little flap books entertained him in the plane, restaurants, and while we’re changing his diaper. We have two, and the one on the scrapbook is a Chunky Flap Book. It’s not as good as the other one, because the flaps seemed stuck and hard for his little hands to open. But I’m looking to buy more, and will make sure the flaps are user-friendly.

During the first year of his young life our baby always preferred his father. I not only played second fiddle, I probably ranked fourth after the cook and nanny, in his choice of company. But no one could put him to sleep better than I did. Maybe it’s cheating, but I always sang to him and held him close to me. Since he was young he seemed to have sleeping problems either due to gas, fever, diarrhea, teething, or night terrors. But I found that letting him feel the steady rhythm of my breathing relaxes him.

Speaking of sleeping problems, my palangga has been suffering from varying degrees of partial arousal as long as I can remember. It’s hard to pinpoint it because he was also prone to gas. But there have also been time when he talked in his sleep, or whimpered and cried, or chuckled. Once he learned to sit up and crawl he also did the same while asleep or half-asleep. Needless to say we tried and eventually stopped listening to “expert advice” from other parents and parenting gurus who recommended teaching them to sleep alone and let them cry out. The few times we did our baby cried so cried he threw up. But we do understand that he should get as much sleep or rest during the day and go to bed on regular schedule.

When he is sleep deprived or put past his bedtime the result can be scary . For the past three nights he would go to sleep without any problems, but 2-3 hours later would start whimpering and crying. We made all the mistakes unknowing but concerned parents do: hug or cuddle him, offer a pacifier and a drink, sing to him. These attempts just made things worse. He would try to go back to sleep but minutes later would whimper again until he starts screaming, thrashing, and kicking. His eyes are open but it’s as if he does not recognize us. When I tried to hold him he’d arch his back as if he has gas or in serious pain and didn’t want to be touched. If we set him down on the floor he’d start writhing. The weird part is he shows no sign of it when he wakes up in the morning, “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” It is very similar to this parent’s own experience:

I have a one year old who wakes up several times a night, but acts strangely. He is much more agitated than during the day. He won’t allow us to hold him, he throws his head back and arches away from us. When we lay him down, he writhes around like he is possessed. Sometimes we can snap him out of it by nursing or turning the light on.

http /www.medhelp.org/posts/Child-Behavior/Confusional-arousal/show/881575

My husband almost dropped him last night, and he got very worried because this is the first time he has seen our baby in this state. He thought our baby was having a seizure.

“Welcome to my world,” I told him.

For some reason I’ve always experienced it many times before only when my husband was out of town or out of the house. I even called a friend in the middle of the night so we could bring my baby to the doctor. He knew less than I did, and couldn’t find anything wrong: no gas, temperature was normal, no sign of ear infection. But he’s never heard of confusional arousal, and since he was not an experienced pediatrician (he was just the doctor on duty that time) I was disgusted that they still billed me. The other pediatrician was nicer, but she was not around.

At any rate I realize that confusional arousal only seemed to happen when one parent is not around. This week it was because I’ve been staying up late, and my husband preferred to do the nightly ritual of changing, feeding, and tucking James in without me around distracting the baby.

And we realized from this article that everything we’ve done to comfort baby did not only help, but actually prolonged the ordeal. No wonder this bouts last for an hour.

When an event does occur, do not try to wake the child — not because it is dangerous, but because it will tend to prolong the event. It is generally best not to hold or restrain the child, since his subjective experience is one of being held or restrained; he would likely arch his back and struggle all the more.

http://wiki.drgreene.com/index.php/Confusional_arousal;_Partial_arousal_state;_Sleep_terrors

I’m glad that tonight we know better. Dr. Greene recommended something that we learned, through trial and error (but were not fully aware as we combined good and bad methods): which is to help him get back to sleep by talking in a soothing voice. What I’ve been doing is “it’s okay, mommy is here, it’s okay.” I kinda got that from watching an episode of Boston Legal because James Spader’s character suffered from a form of night terror.

I started out with a template, and used the same design for all 12 spreads — but then it looked boring and I realized that the point of using a scrapbook software was to make each spread tell a different story using common but not all same elements.

My palangga was very photogenic and cooperative. So I had tons of photos of him smiling and looking straight at the camera. It was only fitting that the opening spread for his monthly milestones would be about his beautiful smile.

I only used one instead of two pages, because the photo of my husband feeding our tiny baby was special. He changed the diaper and clothes as well, because I was really very afraid that I might hurt our palangga.