Milestones

Milestones make moms weird. Every now and then, we have to suppress the urge to compare our kid’s milestones with the rest of the world. And then, there are theories anyways.. like girls start talking faster than boys do..! I find these conversations interesting more than anything else, at one end I think, what’s the hurry for my kid to grow up anyways, who knows , he’d just start rattling off words any of these days and soon he may be off to college .. he he On the other hand, I can’t deny the pride I feel everytime he touches a milestone. More then pride, it’s the joy of seeing him learn those tiny things and the wonder of ‘did he just manage to do that?!’ I still remember him rolling over when he was 3 months old, and I was amazed at how this tiny immobile thing that was lying on the bed idle has now managed to do some hardcore exercise. And then, it seemed like it took him forever to crawl. He was trying to move forward since this 4th month and would move a step here and there but actually started crawling full fledged only around his 7th – 8th month. He was one of these chubby kids and people used to tell me that some of these kids actually sit directly without crawling much.. but I really was hoping he’d do his bit of crawling first. So I was really glad when he was QUITE the CRAWLER!! For the past 3 weeks or so, he has been sitting quite comfortably and also trying to stand up holding every object he gets hold of. And I may be getting philosophical here, but everytime I see this kind of a drastic change, I feel so awed and humbled by nature and the miracle of human body, and makes me feel closer to God.

 

Wayanad trip and Clingy Sid

This diwali, I wanted to do something different. This was Sid’s first diwali after all. Hubby has been overworking for a long time now, so I thought it would be great to go on a trip somewhere, the 3 of us. So I planned a 3 day trip to Wayanad (kerala). Had booked this homestay that I was referred to by one of my colleagues. It wasnt such a smooth trip though.

I was already feeling quite nervous since we were going on a long drive for the first time with hubby driving and also our first real trip with Sid. I was a bit unsure about how I was going to manage him for about 6 hrs. Sid actually behaved quite well inside the car, I took some of his favorite toys and when he would really get out of control and start crying, play his 2 favorite songs  – refer earlier post But we lost our way a bit and the drive eventually turned out to be 9 hrs which was too much for me and Sid to take. I mean, I still cant believe I managed that restless kid for so long inside the car. And then the wrong route we took had some pathetic roads and hairbends which made me feel nauseous and made Sid cry, God knows what the poor thing was going through.

We reached Wayanad finally on Sat evening around 4pm. The homestay I had booked was nice, had a great view of paddy fields and plantations. The room was pretty basic, but the kitchen was closeby, which was really useful for me since I needed to sterilize the feeding bottles, boil water, etc. What I really did not expect was Sid’s reaction once we reached there. He just realized its a new place and started screaming the way I’ve never seen him scream before. It took us so much of our energies to calm him down, but he still woke up in the middle of the night and started yelling for no reason. The moment I left him in the bed, he knew it wasnt his and would come and cling to me. I’ve never seen him cling so much to me. He would be playing one moment and suddenly with no notice he would just start weeping the next moment. The whole thing was a big puzzle to me and I was sapped of all my energy by Sat night.

The good thing was we actually managed to see a few places the next day and even went for boating (I’m hoping no family member would actually read this) Sid seemed to enjoy the boat ride. But we had to skip many other places, since we didnt have the energy in the first place and also many of the places in Wayanad require some bits of trekking which isnt feasible with a kid.

We started back on Mon morning and the return drive was really awesome! Which made me more bitter mourning what we missed in the onward journey Overall, a mixed experience if I think in a positive manner. I mean, people have warned me of the problems when travelling with a kid, but experiencing it first hand made a difference. Mixing milk and cereal every few hrs and putting him to sleep now & then and calming him down when he is crying — where is the time to enjoy the trip between all this?! Hubby isnt as bitter as me and still thinks it was a nice experience to talk about when you look at it now, but I think I’ll need some time to garner my guts again for my next trip.

 

Update!

My boy is growing. He has been sitting with one hand resting down for a couple of weeks now. Last week apparently he sat with both his hands off the floor but I observed it for the first time today FINALLY! Perils of working — your mom gets to watch his FIRSTs all the time

He is also trying to stand up now holding something, but can’t balance for long.

I’ve also started veggies for him, have been very lazy on that front. So I guess people typically start around 6 months, but I started just a couple of weeks back. Started gradually on carrots and spinach. He seems to like them both, so cool He does not seem to like idlis so much, but didnt try too hard yet.

But the best thing I like about this phase is that he is going really SOCIAL.. well, he has no choice..he is surrounded by so many ppl ..me, hubby, my mom, my in-laws, hubby’s grandfather so he is getting used to a lot of different faces. The other day, he was stretching his arms towards some total stranger in the lift!!!