I'm sure it's been so long that most of our regular readership have given up hope, and I am now just talking to myself, but so much has happened in the last 4 weeks!
First there was the business of PACKING, and then the craziness of MOVING, followed by the labor of UNPACKING (as well as the assembling of furniture and the running of errands in conjunction with the caring of a toddler). Also the more that happens, the harder it is decide what to start talking about.
In addition to the changes in our lives due to our relocation into our first home, there have also been some major changes in Ruby! The most exciting of this past week is that Ruby, at the tender age of 14.5 months, began to crawl!
The Long-Awaited First Crawl:
At first, Ruby's crawling constituted of maybe 1-2 feet of forward motion. However, over the past couple of days, she has really taken off! Now Ruby FOLLOWS me around the house! While this may be 7-month-old news to most of my fellow mommies with 14-month-old babies, it is a completely novel concept to me and quite a sight to see Ruby in a crawling position. Although for most parents there is a sense of dread when their babies become mobile enough to get into everything in the house, we have been waiting for Ruby to crawl for so long that we are practically encouraging her to get into things! We'll see what happens when the novelty wears off.
At this point, Ruby is going through a transitory phase where arguments could be made that she is still a baby and arguments could also be made that she is now a toddler.
Ways in which Ruby is still a baby:
1) She STILL does not crawl. The closest she comes is getting into an awkward crawling position before collapsing onto her tummy. However, we have learned that this crawling deficiency was inherited from her father, who also did not crawl, although everyone chalked it up to him being too fat.
It is encouraging to know that Steve does know how to crawl NOW, so this deficiency can be overcome.
2) Ruby will only take milk like baby, either from nursing or from a bottle. After 1 year, babies can be transitioned onto cow's milk and are encouraged to drink from a sippy cup. However, this arrangement was not to Ruby's liking. Although she drinks water from a sippy cup like a champ, she refuses milk when it's in a sippy.
Although I had no plans to stop nursing, I hoped to begin to introduce cow's milk so that Ruby could warm up to it at her own pace and so that I could stop pumping at work. Unfortunately, it seems that Ruby has some sort of reaction to cow's milk that causes any skin the milk has touched to turn red. Although the reaction is fairly mild and goes away on its own within an hour, we decided it's probably best to not transition her onto cow's milk for fear that it may exacerbate her eczema. The pediatrician suggested several alternative milks including goat's milk, coconut milk, and almond milk, which I have yet to try. In the meantime, I am still the sole milk supplier and Ruby's preferred method of milk delivery.
3) Still squishy.
Ways in which Ruby is a toddler:
1) Ruby is actually toddling (with assistance). She now walks quite well with her lion walker and along furniture. Although she is by no means a speed demon, she has definitely improved to faster than a snail's pace. This means she finally has some autonomy over where she is going, at least until the lion bumps into a wall.
2) Ruby becomes more and more communicative every day. The list of Words Ruby Can Say has expanded to include:
Na-na
Ye-ye (Grandpa in Chinese)
A-yo! (Chinese expression of surprise)
When she wants milk, Ruby will now call out, "Ma-ma! Ma-ma!" as she vigorously makes the sign for milk.
Just last night, on one of her dinner dates with her little boyfriend Julien, Ruby engaged in a brand new form of communication: inter-baby communications!
In the middle of eating their dinners, Ruby and Julien suddenly looked each other in the eye, chatted back and forth, and waved to one another! Although Ruby and Julien have played on many other occasions ever since they were 3.5 months old, this was the first true communication between them and the first time I had ever witnessed Ruby make a connection to a fellow baby/toddler in the same way that she connects to an adult.
3) Earlier this month, Ruby transitioned to one nap a day, which is definitely a big kid move. She also has 4 more teeth coming in on top, which would bring the total to 6. Overall, she is more mature. However, she is hardly ready to venture out on her own, and I am hardly ready to let her.
