All Sorts of Sitting

There's a common belief among Estonian doctors and mothers that babies shouldn't be allowed to sit until they are able to do this completely without help. She must not sit with or without support until she goes into sitting position on her own. That happens around 7 or 8 months of age. I'm bringing this up because I was reading about starting the baby on real food and a leading Estonian pediatrician said that at 4-6 months baby should be able to sit with support and that's when it's the right time to start with real food. So what is it - can she sit or not? Google to the rescue! This is how Americans see it: "...head control is essential to sitting independently, and sitting is the key to crawling, standing, and learning to walk."(Babycenter) So basically it's another topic where everyone's an expert. Estonian mothers say, "sitting has no importance in over-all physical development. The later she learns the better!" and American mothers say, "sitting is an important milestone. Help your baby learn it so she can learn to crawl.". And all this time I have been really nervous if baby gets to sit even for a few seconds.

Another sitting I wanted to mention is babysitting. I have a brand new babysitter. I found her with Google within only minutes so I was quite nervous how good she can be. She has no previous experience with such small babies and she's pretty young (22 years) but she loves children and has found a calling in babysitting. We started with three hours of seeing how the baby reacts to her. I was also at home in another room - ready to feed her or calm her down. Long story short: It went great. Babysitter has a very melodic high-pitch voice and adamant determination to play with Siiri the entire time, except during naps. Babysitter moves toys in front of her, does funny faces and funny sounds and baby loves it. She spent more time smiling than she normally does during the entire day. She occasionally got nervous when she hadn't seen me for a while but she only needed a glimpse to see that I'm still nearby. The next time babysitter came Siiri gave her a smile the moment babysitter arrived. We made a deal for twice a week for three hours.

Yay to the babysitter!

I had the weirdies revelation the other day: People come in different shapes and sizes! You're probably thinking something like, "Really? That's your big revelation? You're joking, right?". But I'm not. I had heard it before but I had no reason to believe it because it doesn't really apply to young people. Young women all have similar bodies, except they range from very thin to very fat. Boob size seemed the only body part that's not completely dependant on weight. In commercials there is only one size: thin and athletic with big boobs. It was easy to envy those who are thinner and more athletic. A few days ago I was in Bodycombat and looked around me. A gym full of 20-40 year old women and a couple of men. I had never really noticed but no two bodies looked alike. It wasn't just small hips versus wide hips. Some hips looked round, some oval, some looked square, some went on to legs without any transition, some seemed to stand apart from the rest of the body. And then I looked at the mirror and decided I like my shape. All the different shaped body parts actually go together well and there suddenly wasn't another woman in the vicinity whose body I'd rather have.

I love my new hobby! I bake pies. Lots of pies. Different pies! Yumm! We bought a book called "100 pies, Book 3". It has about 120 cake or pie recipes. I would have thought it's supposed to have 100 of them but I'm glad they didn't want to leave any of them out. Me and Erkki take turns in choosing which pie to bake. They're all very fattening and sweet. Many of them have berries or fruit or chocolate and nearly all the recipes have either butter or whipped cream. But that right here is an excellent reason to bake a pie. NONE of the recipes says, "Take a stick of low quality margarine and mix it with everlasting fruit flavored jam." It's all real ingredients and all real result. That has been my general direction in cooking - natural foods with high quality ingredients. A simple slice of pork with only salt and pepper now tastes better to me than store-marinated meat with a dozen badly defined ingredients or canned meat sauce. And there is no denying that butter is a better cake ingredient than margarine.

I'm off to bake a cake. Reason is as good as any: Just Because I Can. I'm sure this new past time will pass before I end up a mangy looking fat old lady with a rolling pin in one hand and flour on my dress.

Who Said I Can't

Amazing what sleep can do with how you feel. Little one has returned to previous sleeping patterns and now everything is falling into place. I get more sleep so I'm more relaxed, baby gets more sleep so she is better rested and much more happy. This in turn gives me more time to rest so I am more eager to entertain baby just for the fun of it. This again makes baby happier and she goes to bed in a pleasant mood and therefore sleeps even better. When one (or both) of us sleep badly, the opposite happens because mother and child keep infecting each other with their stress and bad mood.

It can be a nasty loop when mother and child keep dragging each other's mood down but it can be amazing once the loop becomes positive. At times it's a total giggle-fest over here. Baby giggles - I giggle - baby sees me giggling and giggles again - I think her reaction is adorable and it makes me giggle. And then Erkki curiously asks from the other room, "What the heck are you two doing in there?". For me it's like laughing therapy. Stress just melts away. And it's definitely good for bonding with Siiri.

There are two equilibrium states in the mother-baby dynamics: very good and very bad . The entire thing is very far from being self-sustaining because even a few sleepless nights can shift the balance to the other end of the spectrum and life goes from very good to very bad and there's not much I can do to stop it. It's out of my control. I can't just choose to be in a good mood. The only thing I can do is to hide my stress from the baby so it doesn't affect her and intensify all of my positive emotions. No one has an endless supply of positive emotions and it certainly doesn't help when an unhappy baby uses up all the reserves in a matter of hours. This two-equilibrium pattern makes it especially important to get new positive emotions from outside when baby is teething or otherwise feeling bad.

One problem though - when baby is really unhappy she needs me to be at her side. Yet when baby is upset, I need to take a break more than ever because I need to positive emotions from elsewhere. In my opinion it is best to ignore the short-term emotions and concentrate on our long-term happiness: I'm not going to spend all my days with an unhappy baby because that way she will stay unhappy for a very long time. When there's something bothering Siiri, she MIGHT become restless because she is simply LESS LIKELY to settle for anyone else's company but mine. Except Erkki's. It appears our little girl has already become daddy's little girl. Oh you should have seen her expression when Erkki got home yesterday evening. She got so enthusiastic when she heard his voice from the corridor and when she saw him she stretched out her arm toward him as far as she reached and she was just so happy Erkki's home. She touched Erkki's five o'clock shadow, then my cheek, and back and forth many times. The cutest little creature she is.

Baby Update: I called her "a little girl" but she's really not all that little anymore. A couple of days after turning 5 months old she weighed 8 kg (0.1 kg accuracy). This means she has gained another 700 grams in a month and she's a whole kilo bigger than her age group. She's far from being fat (or big-boned for that matter ). She's just really vigorous and strong. She really seems to be in a hurry to grow up. Perhaps one reason she's so big is that she might end up being over 180 cm tall considering mine and Erkki's height.

Her physical development skyrocketed this week. On Monday, when she had turned 5 months old, we went to see a physical development specialist to make sure she doesn't have any excess muscle tension. Doctor noted that she's very well-developed and we had a short conversation about what she can and can not do. She does push her arms straight and lifts her chest, plays with toys while on her stomach and pulls her trousers from knee height, but she doesn't turn to her stomach on hard surface, she doesn't crawl around her axis, and she doesn't try to put her toes in her mouth yet. Doctor assigned us a few swimming lessons because it's good for nearly all babies.

We got home and I put the baby down to wash the dishes. A moment later she was lying on half her toys on her stomach and trying to hold balance so she doesn't roll back. Wow! Great going, Siiri! Then I changed her diaper and she suddenly discovered some funny little wriggly things at the tip of her feet. What fascinating things, must have a taste! So she was pulling her toes toward her mouth. Even later she was on her stomach on a bed and suddenly started to push her legs straight, so that half her body was in the air. She found a little support under her foot and pushed herself a couple of inches forward. It only happened once but she did it very skillfully. The next evening she was on her stomach on her play carpet and her rattle fell out of her reach to her side. She looked at it seriously, and then moved a little around her axis until almost had it. Basically she did nearly everything that she was unable to do on Monday. She over-heard me and the doctor talking and apparently set out to prove us wrong.

I have a feeling the second tooth won't wait long. A few sleepless nights are ahead but I was happy to get a short break.

First Tooth

After many gruesome sleepless nights Siiri's first tooth has finally arrived. She has been crying a lot lately and this horrible experience has apparently left a mark since she has been very needy ever since teething started. I probably wouldn't mind if she was simply needy but she only needs ME. The last time I went to the gym and left kid with her grandparents she really was not happy. She started crying the moment she saw me leaving for the door and didn't stop until I was back home. That was truly weird because she normally seems very fond of the grandparents. It was real crying - tears, screaming, stiff fists and loud sobbing . And the horrible part is how she calmed down: the moment I was back home and held her in my hands she got quiet - like magic! She was still quite a sad sight with red watery eyes and still sobbing. It probably should feel nice to be so needed by someone, but I have been feeling horribly stressed ever since then. The word that came into my mind is this: PRISON.

It generally works like this: baby wakes up and for the first hour I happily feed her, play with her, change her diaper, and sometimes give her a bath without a break. The second hour I start to feel like I should really do something useful as well - perhaps vacuum the carpet or simply tidy up the apartment. I give baby a toy and steal ten minutes to do something useful. She gets agitated so I report back to her every 2 minutes. "I'm still here baby. I'm 4 meters away. You can see me just fine. Play with your toy." I get very little done so make myself feel better by explaining to myself that I am being useful when I keep the baby company. The third hour I start to feel my mind shutting down. I have given up trying to do the dishes and I just really need some mental stimulation. I want to read the news. I want to sit and regain energy. I try to sit at the computer while constantly reassuring the baby, "I'm right here. Relax." But baby doesn't let me sit for long. She wants me to hold her so she starts to imitate the sound of crying and awaits my reaction. I can postpone this by acting cheerful for her although I'm thinking, "gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! A kingdom for some peace and silence." Then I feed her and put her in bed for a short nap and all too soon the entire cycle starts from the beginning.

It feels really good to go to the gym or even to a lecture. Can you imagine - I felt real joy from listening to a university lecture. Ah the freedom of uninterrupted thoughts. Ah the joy of listening to intelligent talk in stead of emotional gurgling. I do admit that a happily gurgling baby is really cute when it's your child but if it's your main form of communication day in and day out it becomes deeply mind numbing. Too much of anything is just too much. I feel consumed by my baby. A mother's relationship with her baby might be tighter than any other kind out there but frankly every relation needs it's freedom. Could you EVER imagine dating someone who is really clingy, doesn't really understand you, spends every possible moment with you and the rest of the time calls you every 2 minutes saying, "I love you, whatcha doin'?"? How long would it take for you to turn off your phone just to get a break? What if he also calls you almost every hour at night and wants to chat for 10 minutes?

Even now I write three words and then smile to the baby so she wouldn't demand that I hold her. She smiles back cheerful as ever but the moment I even look away her sound becomes distressed. And when I accidentally show her even a hint of stress she becomes uneasy and needs me to hold her which only makes me feel more like a prisoner under tight surveillance. I do have a cute baby and it's a joy to play with her and I have done my best to keep her happy and calm. So far I didn't mind being there for her because I knew I can always take a little break from it all when I need it. But even the thought of not being able to go to any lectures or to do sports has made me feel imprisoned. It has become to wear me down because the high non-stop demand for my attention has become simply intolerable.

I need to think this over. The situation will not improve on it's own but I'm sure there's a solution. She still stays fairly calm when Erkki is babysitting so I can still work out. Thank God for Erkki. I will try to make baby take a nap when I have a lecture and my little brother is babysitting. This way I can stay sane for another month or two but during that time I need to train my baby to be less clingy because the current situation just isn't working for me.

Truth be told, my recent stress might have something to do with how much I sleep. For over a week now I have woken up every 1 or 2 hours at night and usually get up between 8-9 a.m. Today I slept only four hours during which I woke up twice to feed the baby. This MIGHT be making me a little edgy.

There is good news in all this: even under these extreme conditions I have still not lost my temper with the baby. That's gotta be worth something, right?

Cookies In Space

We moved last weekend. We started packing on Friday morning, moved the boxes to our new rental apartment on Saturday morning and we had unpacked nearly everything by Sunday afternoon. We moved from a furnished 2-room apartment (bedroom+ everything else + 2 in 1 bathroom) to a fully furnished 4-room apartment (3 bedrooms + living room + amazing kitchen + dining area + bathroom + sauna and shower room + walk-in closet for storage). The best part - rent is only 33% bigger than before due to the changes in real estate prices.

We settled in really fast. I'm not just talking about picking out a drawer for medicine and another one for pens and paper. Almost immediately after unpacking we knew where we had put all our stuff. I can't recall even one time when I would think, "where the heck did I put ... ?" and frantically run around the apartment opening random cupboards and drawers. That's because there are SO MANY cupboards and drawers here. Everything got it's own perfect little place. Now we actually DO have a medicine drawer, not a medicine/make-up/hair-styling/gloves/keys drawer. This sort of things make life a lot easier. Another cool thing is the walk-in closet I mentioned earlier. We now have a place for nearly everything, even the things that go nowhere. We didn't have to tug a tent and sleeping bags under a bed. We don't even have to keep the vacuum cleaner "hidden" in the bedroom corner. Both have their very own place in the storage closet. It's really only a detail, but it makes a huge difference in clutter control! Everything "extra" is out of sight and this makes living here much more enjoyable.

The people who lived here before us were total clutter monkeys! During the first couple of days here I kept finding pointless clutter. Have you seen that colored rubber that's used for drawing on glass? Well I removed very clumsy glass drawings from three rooms and left a couple of drawings untouched in the fourth. I also removed a newspaper cut-out of a very average-looking kitten taped on the wallpaper, a toothpaste advertising poem sticker on the bathroom mirror, a Christmas potpourri from under the kitchen sink, fake grass in a white plastic cup in the bathroom, free cheese sticker on the kitchen cupboard door and -the best for last- two tiny fruit stickers (e.g. "product of Spain") from a sleek metal post in the kitchen. I mean, WHO DOES THAT? It definitely doesn't make the kitchen any prettier. It's a compulsion to never throw junk away and it takes great skill to hide such junk to an otherwise very pretty home.

Our electronics is not adjusted to this place at the moment. Our computers work and we have basic Internet connection but THERE IS NO INTERNET IN THE LIVING ROOM!!! This means no XBox Live and no online video clips on the TV-screen. How did the previous occupants manage?! There's not even a phone cord here which means the previous people didn't have digital TV-channels either. Or perhaps I'm looking at the whole thing from the minority viewpoint. I bet most people would find it odd that our household doesn't have a regular television cord. There is a TV-plug in the wall but no way to get the signal into the TV. That means I can play all the Guitar Hero I want but no Orpah for me.

I love-love-LOVE the kitchen. I have so much space and I especially love the oven! For one and a half years I have managed without home made pies and oven-baked salmon. Now I'm baking like crazy and I often over-eat. I'm currently excited about chocolate chip cookies that I made and I'm wondering how much chocolate I could add to the dough before it all falls apart. As a scientist in the making, I have come up with a solution to this enigma: EXPERIMENTATION. I'm just gonna have to re-make the cookies to optimize chocolate content. So much for a healthy home cooked meal.

Baby handled the change in surroundings quite well. It only took a couple of days for her to stop ogling at the curtains, the couch, the table and all the other REALLY WEIRD things around her. She still sleeps in her own bed in our room so there's not much difference there. Actually when I said "sleeps" I was grossly exaggerating the reality. I appears she's getting her first tooth - she has a wide white bump where the first tooth should appear and she is acting like a classic teething baby. During the day she's distracted by her toys but at night she wakes up nearly every hour and she cries inconsolably until I feed her. My body is adjusting to it. -Yawn- I am extremely clumsy and a little disoriented but I feel surprisingly good considering how often I wake up.

There is one weird thing with the apartment: I constantly imagine rooms being switched around. When Erkki walks past me from the living room to the bedroom I make a mental note, "Erkki's in the kitchen". My mental map of the apartment of all screwed up. Actually there's another weird thing as well: I often get creeped out when I'm in the shower-sauna room. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I stand by the sink and I get an eerie feeling like someone's standing behind me in the dark sauna. I think I've been watching too much "Supernatural" series. Or maybe there is a local ghost here and he's upset about the toothpaste advertising sticker that I removed.

Anyway, the apartment is great. It's exactly what we were looking for and even more.

Baby Update: She'll be 5 months old in a week. She can roll over on soft surface. Feeding her on the bed has become hilarious because she usually turns over to her stomach the moment I place her on the bed. This makes me laugh and then she giggles in response. One time she liked this game so much that she ended up eating while lying on her stomach. Baby can roll to her back only when her arm doesn't get in the way but she still needs a little help turning to her stomach on hard surface. Her crawling is also progressing. When she's feeling active she wriggles very vigurously on her stomach. However she's still doing something wrong because she moves only an inch or two and the direction (forth vs backward) is completely random.