Talia’s second tooth came through last week, at 13 months (10 months corrected), a month after the first tooth.
It is an upper tooth but not one of the two in the middle - it is off to the side. The corresponding upper tooth on the other side is also coming down. I have no idea what has happened to the two upper front teeth! Apparently the normal order is bottom front teeth, then top front teeth, then the ones to the side.
Once again Talia proves “we don’t do normal”.
Since she figured out solids at the end of last year, Talia has been fantastic, eating all sorts of homecooked meat and veg. She had started to catch up with her weight and all was going well… until now.
A week or maybe a little longer ago, she started objecting to receiving food on a spoon, pushing it away with her hands and turning her head to the side. With a bit of ingenuity (”say aaah Talia!”) I could get a spoonful in, and after carefully digesting this first mouthful with all the seriousness of a wine connoisseur judging expensive shiraz (up to but not including the spitting out stage), she would then allow me to feed her the rest of the meal.
I thought I had it all under control until the beginning of this week, when she decided that not even the first spoonful would be considered acceptable, under any circumstances. It has been very difficult to deal with, as I don’t want mealtimes to be a fight, but I can’t let her go without a healthy diet. It’s not that she won’t eat - just that she won’t allow herself to be fed. It wouldn’t matter so much if she was older and able to use a spoon, but at the moment she will only accept a limited range of finger foods - and they are subject to change without warning. Savoury pikelets were a hit on Tuesday but thrown out of the high chair on Wednesday. Raisin toast has come back into favour, as have avocado finger sandwiches, but baked ricotta is now out and her acceptance of random veges appears to depend entirely on her mood, the phase of the moon and whether or not the wind is blowing from the west.
This is the sort of point where you realise that being a mother is a full time job and then some.
Physiotherapy is one of those emotionally fraught issues for a parent. You know you are doing the right thing by giving your child extra help to reach their physical milestones, but at the same time you still feel fragile and vulnerable because your baby isn’t making progress like everyone else.
When it was first suggested Talia have physio I was ready to burst into tears, even though I knew she was lagging behind her peers. When she made early progress and sat by herself, I was very proud, and assumed we were over that hurdle and wouldn’t need to go back. Unfortunately a few months later the original prognosis came back to haunt us - her development was very patchy and would only lead to frustration as she matured mentally but was trapped physically. She could sit all day like a buddha, surrounded by toys, but nothing on earth would persuade her move from where she sat. If a toy was out of reach, so be it. Shortly after her birthday four weeks ago we resumed one-to-one physio sessions at the hospital to help Talia develop the skills she needs to be able to reach, turn, crawl, stand and eventually walk.
Two sessions of physio (plus plenty of practice at home) later, Talia has steadily improved her abilities, and now does things other babies (and their parents) take for granted, but which were entirely new for her: playing with a toy using both hands on the same side of her body; turning to the side over her knees and raising her bottom off the ground; moving her body so she is on “all fours” (although she usually slips down onto her tummy); turning and reaching and then bringing herself back to a sitting position; pulling herself up to standing while holding my hands. With help she can put weight on her knees and will occasionally start rocking in a way which some babies do before starting to crawl.
Today I went proudly to the monthly group physio session, knowing that Talia would be surrounded by ex-24 weekers who are crawling like Olympic champions but glad at least that she no longer spends these sessions just lying on a mat crying, and hopeful that she might have crept up a little on the development chart. (Yes they have percentile charts for development too, not just height, weight and head circumference!)
The physiotherapist who saw us was very pleased with her progress - but regretfully showed me that Talia has in fact slipped lower on her development chart due to the very erratic nature of her progress. I am making up an example here, but apparently most babies develop skill A (like rolling) before skill B (like sitting) before skill C (like pulling themselves up on furniture) before skill D (like standing confidently with support). Talia has decided to do B before A, and D without C. So from the physiotherapist’s perspective, she still has a long way to go. In contrast, my mother has been overseas since we started the extra sessions and will no doubt be amazed to see how far Talia has come in 5 weeks.
The hospital provides physiotherapy only until their NICU graduates are 12 months corrected, which in our case is only 2 months away. So it will be interesting to see how much more progress we can make in the next 8 weeks, before we are out on our own.
Today marks the first anniversary of an early milestone. We came into the nursery on a Monday evening to find the humidicrib gone, and in its place, Talia lying asleep in an open cot. We had no idea it was imminent and were almost beside ourselves with excitement.
The nurses said she was a hot baby (she still is) and they couldn’t make the humidicrib any cooler, so out she came! She was exactly 5 weeks old and weighed somwhere between 1.4 and 1.5kg.
I was dressed up and waiting for the babysitter to arrive before we went out for dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary, when I noticed Talia had a big blotchy red mark on the side of her forehead. It looked quite nasty, as if she’d banged her head badly and broken a lot of little blood vessels just below the surface of the skin. I felt sick just looking at it, as I must have had my attention elsewhere and she’d fallen on a toy or something.
Then I reached out gently to touch it - and the lipstick came off on my fingers. Ooops. Guess who doesn’t put on make-up very often? I guess that classifies as “kissing it worse”.
After what seems like an eternity of da-da, dye-dye, ya-ya, ha-gi etc, Talia has been experimenting with some new sounds this past week.
New sound #1: ssssssth (a bit like having a lisp). Talia came up with this sound last week and I spent a bit of time trying to get her to say ‘yes’ - she can almost manage “eeyeth”. It would be impressive to have a baby who says yes before she says no.
New sound #2: nan-nan/nun-nun. I was very excited when I heard this yesterday morning, and I imagine her nana will be too when she gets back from the UK and hears it for herself.
New sound #3: mummum. This happened late in the afternoon yesterday. She actually said “da-da-da-mum-mum-mum’ but I was so surprised to hear it so soon after the excitement of nan-nan that I wouldn’t have quite believed it if we didn’t happen to be out with a friend, who was able to confirm that she really did say mum-mum-mum.
WOO-HOO!!! Once again I am feeling ridiculously proud of my clever little daughter.
I’ve been borrowing childrens’ CDs from the library, and the quality varies. Here are a couple of lyrics which caught my ear recently.
Most Annoying Lyrics Award goes to a song from a Play School CD. This song combines truly awful lyrics with an annoyingly catchy tune that went around my head for hours, the way some advertising jingles do. Fortunately for anyone who reads this blog, I am unable to share the tune but here is the chorus:
They’re round in the middle and they’re bigger at the bottom
They’re smaller at the top and we’re glad that we’ve got ‘em
And they’re egg-shaped…..’cos they’re eggs!
Every bird you’ve ever known, lays eggs.
Best Adaptation of an Old Favourite Award goes to an ABC Nursery Rhymes CD. Following the usual lyrics to I’m a Little Teapot, suddenly there was another verse:
I’m a little teapot, short and stout
Here is my handle, here is my handle.
Ha ha tricked you, I’m a sugar bowl!
