The Perfect 10

Today, Lucas turns 10-months old!

He is my perfect little boy.  He doesn't give us any grief.  He can be difficult sometimes--he doesn't drink a lot of milk, he screams when he's hungry, he cries when we leave him alone while he's playing in his room, and sometimes it takes forever to put him to sleep.  But he's just being a baby, he does what he's supposed to do.

But I say that he's my perfect little boy because so far he has brought us nothing but perfection.  He has made us perfectly happy--he completed us!  He has, so far been perfectly healthy--the one thing I am so grateful for.  He puts a smile in our faces with his tiny sweet smiles and he rejuvenates us and restores our energy even after a long, exhausting day at work.

We had a life before him--a good one, I must say.  But for the last ten months, we had an even better, happier life and it's all because of him!

Kiss

Clapping or waving or closing and opening of the hands or even blinking of the eyes (beautiful eyes) are the most common things that babies learn how to do first.  But not for Lucas.  The first thing he learned to do and follow (when told to do so) is kissing.

When you tell him to kiss mommy or daddy or somebody, he leans forward and presses his face or forehead against yours.  At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but he does it every time he is told to kiss and he does it consistently, which makes me think that he understands.  He knows what kissing is and he knows what to do when asked to kiss.

This amazes me but it doesn't surprise me at all.  There's a lot of kissing around the house.  Mom and dad kiss quite a bit.  We both kiss Lucas a lot and when I kiss him, I tell him what I'm doing.  I'd say to him "kiss mommy beh!" and I guess he just learned how to follow.

Now, I want to start teaching him sign language so he can start communicating to us even before he starts to speak.  Wouldn't it be nice if he can tell us what he thinks or how he feels?  When he's hungry or tired or sleepy?  I'd be a happy camper if he does that!

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Photo:  Lucas kissing his cousin, Benjamin.

Got Milk?

After nearly three weeks of drought, Lucas finally finished a bottle of milk again!  He only finished 4 oz. of milk as opposed to his usual 7 oz., but this was definitely better than nothing.

Nearly three weeks ago, Lucas just suddenly stopped drinking milk.  For about two days, he started by not finishing his 7 oz-bottle.  He would only take half.  On the third day, he completely rejected milk.

We couldn't figure out why.  We thought he got tired of the taste and I heard this is pretty common for babies his age, but could be easily resolved by changing the brand of his formula.  So we tried two other brands of formula, but that didn't work.  We thought maybe he got tired of his bottle, so we introduced a sippy cup--that didn't work either.  Then we thought maybe he's teething (he's got two right now but there should be more coming out), and the sucking gives him discomfort.  But then he sucks his binky alright, and in fact, he can't sleep without it.  We are running out of diagnosis and still don't know what his problem is, so we just kept trying and wasted a lot of milk in the process.

He is now only sustained by solids--at least he still eats.  But he has really gotten skinny and often gets constipated due to his lack of liquid intake.

Last night, I tried again and gave him a 4 oz-bottle of milk.  We've scaled down from 7 oz. to 4 oz. since this happened to minimize the waste.  And walah!  He drank and finished the whole thing!  This morning, his nanny gave him another 4 oz-bottle and he finished it again.  I hope he gets back his appetite for milk.  It worries me that he doesn't have enough liquid in his body and he is missing all the nutrients that the formula offers.  Then again, we can only keep trying.