Lazy me

I'm such a lazy bum. These past few days, all I've done during my free time is try to crochet some cute amigurumi from a book. God knows how long it's been since my last entry. Saya has definitely grown a lot. Let me recall her recent milestones:

1. Rolling over: although Saya had grasped this concept far back when she was four months, she had no interest in doing so on her own. She knew how to roll from her tummy onto her back and vice versa, she did it so rarely that I didn't even know if she really knew how to do it at all. Recently, however, she has been rolling onto her tummy a lot on her own. I suspect it's because she searches for the breast and ends up tipping herself over so much that she accomplished the task of rolling over.

2. Crawling: Almost at 8 months, but Saya shows no sign of trying to crawl. She was able to pull herself up into standing position at 6 months. I think Baby-Ya has the impression that she can already walk because everytime we think she's going to crawl (when she's in her crawling position), she puts her feet on the floor and tries to push herself up into standing position. I was told that not crawling may be problematic, but who really cares. She seems to be doing just fine.

3. Eating: Remember the whole baby-led-weaning method that I mentioned I'd try. Well, at 5.5 months, I succumbed to my parents' incessant nagging about how I'm starving my baby on an exclusive breastmilk diet and I started feeding baby purees to Saya. (Then again, Phuong's wedding was dangerously cose. My mother wanted to keep my relatives from finding out about my out-of-wedlock conception. As Phuong's bridesmaid, it was next to impossible to do that when Saya would not take the bottle. To make a long story short, they replaced me at the last minute. But my parents eventually let the cat out of the bag when they realized that it's still next to impossible to keep Saya a secret from the family. I was hoping that my unanticipated early introduction of solids to Saya would make it easier for her to go wihtout me that day. ) Saya loves eating. She is a picky eater, however. As of now, she refuses to eat any of the infant cereals. She can't stand smooth baby purees (good thing for me!). Even though the poor thing has no teeth yet, she loves highly textured foods. It makes my heart melt when Saya smiles at me while she's chewing on some crushed green grapes or soft pumpkin cubes.

4. Introducing the bottle: The irony of this all is that I couldn't get Saya to nurse initially and now that she's nursing, I can't get her to take the bottle at all. As a matter of fact, Saya took the bottle a few times a week up until the third month. Now, she'll play around with the bottle when she's not hungry. But when she gets down to business, nothing else but nursing will do for her. She throws huge fits when she doesn't get to nurse and it discourages me even more to get her to take the bottle because I don't know who will put up with that type of behavior.

I've tried various methods for REintroducing the bottle: getting someone to give it to her when I'm not around, having myself give it to her, giving it to her when she's not too hungry, giving it to her when she's really hungry, trying different bottles, trying different feeding positions, trying different feeding methods (I just need her to take the milk after all!)

To add insult to injury, my mother constantly blames me for Saya's unwillingness to take the bottle. "You should have given her the bottle earlier...you should just wean her..etc.." It also irks me to death when people respond to my situation with "well it's because you spoil her." (But then again, that's a nuance of being a parent isn't it. People always find a way to critique your parenting style even though they don't fully understand your situation)

Honestly, I've reached a point where I just think "fuck it." Forget about trying to go back to work. It's not financially worth it for me anyway. What's spending precious moments with my daughter in the first years of her life compared to a low paying entry position in the world of scientific research/public health/health care? With the way our economy is heading, my job options are practically next to none out there.

5. Personality: We've already had it figured in the first month when Saya screamed at the top of her lungs in her nursing strike. She's a mean baby. Today, Saya threw a fit everytime Chara (Hak's older sis) stopped clapping her hands. But when Um-Yaya resumed, Saya laughed with joy. She can be a calm baby, given that she gets what she wants. Otherwise, Saya whines a lot. She loves pinching my breast when I'm nursing her. I try to discourage it by giving her a blanket or holding her hand. But it seems like pinching my skin produces the most calming effect on her or something. I feel like I'm a part-time masochist or something because there are times when I enjoy her pinching my breast, as weird as that sounds.

Well, there goes my update on Saya. I'm terrible at this stuff. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to update more often from now on.