Lucas Turns 9

NOTE TO READERS:  Sorry for back-dating this post.  I've had this in my drafts for weeks, but never got the chance to post it.  However, I'd like to keep it in my journal so I'm posting it now.

Lucas turned 9 months old on February 24.  I can't believe it's been 9 months.  The pain of labor and delivery and the recovery from it are still very fresh in my memory.  I can still feel the fatigue of waking up every 2-3 hours to either feed him or pump out breast milk when I engorge.  And for those who often see me, you'll agree that I haven't lost all the weight that I gained during pregnancy--in fact, I still have most of it.

But no matter how surreal this may seem, it really has been 9 months since I had Lucas. 

So how has my Lucas been after 9 months? 

• He's been crawling, and he can do it really fast.  Afterall, he's been crawling for almost three months now.
• He can sit up straight and has learned how to balance.  I can let him sit in the handles of his little push bike (well it's not necessarily a bike because it has 4 wheels on it, but I don't know what to call it) and he doesn't fall.
• He can stand up on his own with little or no support. 
• He can move from one place to another by taking small steps and holding on to stuff, but he can't walk yet.
• He's got two lower teeth.
• He's had two haircuts.  The oldies back home are not happy--they said babies should not have their first haircut until they're at least a year old.
• He's been eating solid food and he likes it.  He likes soup of any kind with rice cereal and some chunks of meat.  He likes fish too!
• He loves Yogurt!
• He loves being in the kitchen, especially if we are there.  He's so curious of the dishwasher--he watches really closely as his dad loads the dishwasher with dirty dishes.
• He's a little impatient.  He wants to be fed fast and he screams when I'm slow (I feed him slowly when I'm watching TV while doing it).
• He doesn't like watching TV.  When we put him in front of it, he would watch a little and look away after a minute or less--longer if he sees something interesting on the screen.
• He babbles a lot.  He can only say "dada" or "deee" or "babababa" or "anggi", but this little man can make some serious noise.
• He likes it when I read to him before bedtime.  Although he doesn't understand a thing, he smiles and laughs when I read to him.  He likes his Curious George books more than his Baby Einstein books.
• His Eczema rashes have faded.  Sometimes they reappear, but it has gotten more manageable.
• He has his ways of communicating what he wants--he lifts his arms when he wants us to carry him and he wiggles when he wants us to put him down.  He shakes his head when he doesn't like what we're giving him, and he pulls off his bib when he's done eating.  However, he never tells us when he's hungry (maybe he's never hungry?) and he never complains about being wet or having dirty diapers.
• He prefers to sleep next to us rather than in his crib.  This is bad.
• He can kiss--the first thing he has learned how to do (apart from eating and being mobile).  More about this in another blog.
• He is looking more and more like his dad.

My Lucas is growing up so fast, and there's just no stopping him.

Real Food

Three weeks ago, Lucas had his first taste of real chicken and he loved it.  Since then, I've been putting shredded chicken meat on his cereal.  Today, he had fish for the first time and he liked it too!

I was a little nervous about giving him seafood.  Some pediatricians recommend not giving babies seafood, especially shellfish until they're one year old.  But considering that Nathan had fish as early as six months old, I thought it would be ok.  I wasn't sure about how Lucas would like fish.  I was afraid he would not like the smell at all.  On the contrary, he really did like it and he ate more than he normally would.

Now it's getting harder to feed him with something from the jar.  He seems to dislike baby food now that he's had real food!  On the flip side, he will now get to taste mommy's cooking and I hope he will enjoy his meals as much as I will certainly enjoy preparing them.

Christian

Lucas had his first experience of Lent today.  We brought him to church for Ash Wednesday and like any of us who got ashes in our forehead, he got it too!

When he's big enough to learn, I want him to understand what all these mean.  And it is my responsibility to impart to him such knowledge.  Schools here don't normally teach Religion, unless it's a Catholic school so I have to be prepared to teach Lucas myself in case we can't send him to Catholic school.

I have been teaching him how to pray before putting him to sleep.  He doesn't understand it but he likes it when we pray.  He enjoys listening to me recite "Angel of God".  He clasps his hands and he giggles.

First Valentines

Today, we celebrate

We celebrate a vow

A promise, a commitment

We celebrate joy, fulfillment

And the realization of a dream

We celebrate a gift,

The greatest one we ever got

We celebrate life and love

Today is Valentines Day

And it is a good day

to celebrate...

...HIM!

Lucas-Proofing

Almost everyone who comes to visit us has asked if we have started baby-proofing the house.  Lucas has been crawling for about two months now and he has been trying to walk.  Ideally, we should have started baby-proofing before he became mobile but until now we haven't done any of that.

I thought at first that there won't be a need.  I thought that since we have a live-in nanny who's only job is to watch him, then there won't be that risk of him falling or sticking his fingers on an electrical outlet or opening the kitchen cabinet and getting access to cleansers and chemicals.  But even so, it is impossible for her [or us for that matter] to watch him all the time.  And even if we watch him like a hawk, there's always going to be that risk.  Accidents can happen.

So we started baby-proofing by buying a fence.  There is so much to fence.  We want to put a fence on the entry way to the kitchen, we want to put a fence around our audio-visual system because he now knows to push buttons on the cable box or DVD player--he is attracted to everything that lights up.  Eventually we're going to have to fence the pool.  Glad we don't have staircases so I have one less thing to worry about.

They said things get easier as the baby gets older.  Somehow that's true, but on the other hand, there also appears to be more and more things to consider.  

Li'l Dude Gets A New 'Do

Charles wanted to shave off his hair.  They said shaving off makes hair thicker.  I disagreed.  I asked that we keep his hair a few centimeters long.

So we brought him to a salon for babies and kids called "Panda Room".  But since we didn't have an appointment and there were so many customers, they could not accommodate us.  We booked an appointment for next weekend and headed home.

The following day, I felt the urge to give him a haircut myself.  I thought that if we were going to cut his hair too short, we might as well do it ourselves.  Charles has an electronic razor that has attachments for haircut--all you need to do is set the length, run it though the head and it will cut hair depending on your desired length.

It worked.  Charles gave Lucas his second haircut while I held him and tried to keep him calm.

So how do you like Lucas new 'do? :-)

A Week Without Lucas

My job requires that I travel occasionally.  Lately though, "occasionally" has turned into "quite a bit".  I traveled to three different cities this past two weeks and didn't see Lucas for an entire week.  It was, by far, the longest time I was away from him since his birth.

I have to admit that despite knowing that I will miss Lucas, I too was looking forward to the trips.  I was looking forward to nights alone in a hotel without having to wake up in the middle of the night to change Lucas' diaper or feed him.  But halfway during the trip, I already found myself aching to go home and yearning to be with my son.

It was difficult.  I couldn't sleep and I still ended up waking in the middle of the night.  I missed my son terribly!

Next time, if my trip lasts for more than 3 days, Lucas comes with me!