– 7:03 am
Yesterday we wasted gave you an omelette. Your reaction was a slight positive deviation from the broccoli encounter. Not as much gagging but gagging all the same. Swallowing is still a foreign concept to you.
That said once I mashed bits into your mouth, you were able to swallow them. We gave you water in between to ensure you’d properly swallowed. The last time we fed you solids, I could barely finish saying, “it looks like he might be chok…”, and Liza had given you two giant slaps on your back. I’m surprised it didn’t break. You screamed, of course. We don’t want that happening again now, do we? Didn’t think so.
So in all, small progress but progress nonetheless. Baby steps I guess. At least now we know you’re not allergic. The rest of the omelette is cling-filmed into the fridge. We’ll be back.
Also, through word of mouth, Liza recommended Solid Starts which I’ll be using to manage what foods we give you. It’s a pretty neat resource (and I love a good app). Another thing she quoted was, “babies need their feet to eat” and having free-floating legs would make that harder. I found a backing article. Come to think of it, I don’t think there’s an African dish you can eat with your feet dangling. They require a firm and rigid posture. The lot of them. So I’ve introduced a stool under your highchair.
You’re currently on the floor putting in rolling miles as I type. This is how it goes now… We put you down, blink and you’re at the other end of the room. I can’t imagine the wreckage and destruction to come in a few months.
Unfortunately, rolling implies the end of swaddling. And gosh are we finding out just how hard it is for you to sleep unswaddled. Last night was a mare! We tried to get you to sleep in the bigger bed (you inherited from Kostia and Ginta’s kids) but you weren’t having any of that shit. You can cry for hours, easily. We got another reminder.
In the end, we had to bring you into bed with us. You are still quite jittery and don’t have full control of your arms (and legs). So you wake yourself up half most of the time. And it’s waterworks not long after. There’s also something about needing to be held to sleep. This isn’t uncommon.
Either way though, no more swaddles for you. In fact, I’m thinking of hiding or getting rid of them completely. You can’t be tempted by something you don’t have.
I’ve since put you in a sleeping bag and into the prison-cell-size Moses basket. This thing is definitely too small for you. That and the Snuzpod. They’ll be on Facebook Marketplace soon enough after you’ve mastered the art of sleeping without a swaddle. For now, you’re out cold. Your mother is upstairs trying to make up the sleep time she lost and I’ve got football this morning. It’s my first time back playing in mud on grass since the leg break. Wish me fucking luck!
