13 Months and 11 days

I have been jotting the list of things to write about from the past 2 weeks and organised that I am, I did it at work and I have sat down to write this at home. Let's see how far my memory takes me.

I finally gave in to his vision being clouded by his overgrown locks of hair and gave his first hair cut. I wanted to put off cutting his hair for as long as possible as I had this notion that cutting it would mean an end to his untouched, unblemished, natural babyhood. I knew it would make him look grown up and it does.
I do like his look now, though. Found him exceedingly cute the first two days. We ditched Praveen the Sleepyhead because he was asleep even after 9AM and did it all by ourselves with the video camera running in the background.

I have finally decided to cut down on his milk intake to see if he will accept more food instead. I have been reading too much about nutrition information for toddlers and they have all put me up to this. A glass of milk, a piece of cheese and a tub of yoghurt is apparently the way to go. His lunch intake seems to have improved marginally, according to Anna as he now has a big gap between his breakfast bottle and lunch . I am still putting off starting him on cow's milk instead of the formula. Cow's milk being thinner than his formula he couldn't handle the flow from the bottle. Obviously, the progressive way to go is to drop his bottle and put him on a sipper cup but I don't think he will drink enough that way(have to admit, I haven't tried). Besides, he still likes the idea of a bottle and it soothes him at the worst of times. So I am just buying time here.

He is happy to be left in the childcare these days. I left him at the door of his room and he asked for it to be opened, walked in and just blended into the crowd. After a while I heard an upset cry from him and I wondered if he had fallen or hit himself against something. Anna walks in and tells me, "Oh, it's nothing. He is crying because I walked in. That's how he greets me everyday..." It's his way of showing his attachment to the person. Like I said before, it is the same cry I sometimes get when I pick him up in the evenings. I have noticed that a lot of babies have the same cry when parents pick them up.

He associates keys with going outdoors. He knows that keys get put in the door and that can lead to going outside. He also associates the sound of keys at the door to Praveen's coming home in the evening. He once heard the noise sitting on the kitchen bench top and opened his arms grinning, looking at the door even before Praveen opened the door. I am trying to teach him to associate the sound of the bus at our doorstep to Praveen's coming home as well. I think we are slowly getting there: he gets quiet when he hears the screeching of the bus brakes and listens pointing to the bus.

Talking of pointing, he does that quite a lot now. He has also made it a habit of picking up anything on the floor or within his reach and handing it over to the closest person. This is something I have noticed a lot of babies do. What it means to me is that I am repeatedly asked to accept each of my slippers in turn when I put my feet up on the couch. If I drop them behind the sofa hoping it will put him off the exercise, he will walk around and fetch them back.

He has become quite annoying and is whinging a lot these days. And that seems to coincide with his dinner times. He wants to be picked up, wants to constantly change the person carrying him, gets very restless and generally doesn't quite know what he wants. This is really frustrating because it means he won't eat and that usually leads very quickly to my loss of patience. So he is ending up with his dad for a while in the evenings until I can fill up on my patience levels again. I find that walking away from the scene and ignoring him for a while helps me to do that. It probably sounds harsh and insensitive but it's what works for me. Remaining in the scene longer with my ill temper never did anyone good so far.