This happened on Monday, meeting your paternal grandfather for the first time (albeit virtually). He’s the one who named you Wanchambi. That’s Carl my younger brother, both of whom are in Cameroon currently. I don’t seem to have the cheeks you all share. In all, a beautiful event.
I wonder how much this interaction would cost to fructify without technology to support it. A lot.
Pah Dan, your grandfather, also sent me this great picture of him in our traditional outfit (and no it’s not worn every day, just for special occasions). It’s called the Toghu. We pronounce it /tor.gor/. You have every right to own one. And if you ever decide to wear it, do so with pride and dignity.
I also tried sleeping you in bean bags, twice now to great success.
PS – The swaddle we “upgraded” you to is a teeny bit too small at the shoulders so Liza is going to gift it away. Besides, it defeats its purpose by having way too much wiggle legroom. You’re like an armless karate kid in it, beating the shit out of the air for no reason. Cruel really.
I think we’ll agree to disagree on this one. You can kick out of it all you want but you’re staying in the swaddle. It’s better this way, for everyone.
You’ve made it to the end of the fourth trimester. We all have. It’s been a pleasure raising you this far. I have no complaints and know for a fact that your mother doesn’t have any either. We were kidding around this morning when I asked you to rate our performance on Trustpilot. Liza wouldn’t stop laughing. As if to agree, you babbled some mumbo jumbo which I took to imply a 5-star review.
Out of curiosity, I read a number of articles (like this and this) on what to expect from a three-month-old baby as far as growth and development.
Tracking objects with their eyes
Reaching and grasping for things with their hands
Hand and eye coordination
Less colic and spitting
Better sleeping patterns with longer night stretches
Recognising familiar faces from farther distances
Lifting their head and chest from a belly-down position
Wider vocal range, imitating sounds and turning to whoever is speaking
“Drool bubbles”
Kicking
I can attest to you checking all the above boxes. The drooling is a funny one. So now instead of wiping off milk, we’re wiping off spit bubbles. We’ve simply traded one for the other. The same muslin will do the job. The pleasant thing is, it tends to happen when you’re smiling or “talking”.
Speaking of talking, every week, we hear new sounds. The decibels are getting higher and higher. I try to mimic them back to you which you always find fascinating. You have these eyes that show surprise and wonder simultaneously, typically leaving you speechless.
In addition, your legs are also super strong now and you jerk up and down when I stand you up. It feels like you could walk, much like I feel like I could kick a ball. It’s major progress but not quite at the finish line. Not yet.
Moreover, I’m surprised you haven’t followed my footsteps and broken your legs given how hard you bang them on the changing table. Even more intriguing is the lack of deviation from normalcy when you do it. The bang suggests you should be crying in agony but no, nothing. No tears whatsoever. I was telling your mother we should check if you have a sense of touch i.e. your pain receptors might not be working. I think I was joking.
Yesterday you were quite fussy and broke our feeding schedule. As much as we tried, you just wouldn’t eat and I struggled to get you to finish a bottle. As anticipated, you were up and hungry at 3:30 am or so. You also downed 180ml when I fed you later this morning. You did spit some of it out but that’s a rarity now. Overall, you tend to hold down food a lot better.
Your mother’s at home munching the festive pack of Crosstown doughnuts to mark this occasion. I am –you guessed it – charging the car. I’ll head to the gym from here to do some leg-strengthening exercises. Liza’s meeting up with her friend Stephanie and you guys are going to Tate Modern. You do love looking at art (or anything with a lot of contrast) so I’m sure you’ll have plenty of fun.
You and I are in the car at quite possibly the dingiest place I’ve parked at in a while, JustPark on Sydney street. It’s dark, damp and underground. Once the doors swing open, the piss smell is inescapable. So I’ve got the windows up. I’m surprised I didn’t hit the car driving in through that narrow bend that takes you by surprise. I’m fully expecting to kiss a wall or pillar on the way out.
Why are we here I hear you asking… Well, your mother is having a post-pregnancy ultrasound on her leg veins. She’d had some troublesome ones removed before you were conceived as a measure to reduce the risk of blood clots during pregnancy. We got here late and realised you had to prebook a parking spot. So I let her dash to make her appointment and stayed back to figure things out.
The plan was to join her but I don’t know where the hospital is or its name. And you’re fast asleep. We know how you get when woken up abruptly. Best not to get you singing. So I decided to wait it out till she gets back. In the meantime, I’m on my laptop to that new Nas record, giving it a second listen. What a great body of work.
Yesterday, your mother pointed out some light bleeding under your neck while she was changing your diaper. Turns out, all that spitting has paid off, in the worse way possible. You have a drool rash called intertrigo. Great name I know. But yes, that’s what you have. It’s pink under your neck and I imagine it’s sore and stings when milk or other liquids settle in those folds. Thankfully the remedy is simple and something we already have i.e. vaseline.
You’re making some very odd breathing sounds… Now that’s a loud fucking cry… Going to try feeding you…
We’ve just given you a hot bath. Your love for it is consistent and unwavering. Your mother is upstairs trying to bottlefeed you. I have no idea how she’s getting on. Hopefully well. Unfortunately, you returned with a cold the last time you both went out. You have a cough and a clogged nose.
Kim (Lennon’s mum) picked up some remedies whilst she was out from Boots. She’s the best. Dr Maalouf responded to Liza’s email on what to do with “use saline nose spray four times a day and Calpol twice a day for next 5 days”. She was already giving you the saline spray which helped a great deal. I just oiled your chest with a vapour rub and used a nasal aspirator to suck out the snot. The latter is nowhere near as gross as it sounds. The bedroom is vapoured with lavender and chamomile coming from the plug. It’s so strong I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep in there. My sleep is so easy to disrupt. I definitely don’t need help in that department.
It amazes me how much cheer you still have despite your predicament. It’s not bringing you down at all. Even with a runny nose you still have your smile and bounce. What a child we have. You’re taking it very well. Nevertheless, you hate the spray the most. I’m sorry but it’s for your own good. This moment will pass, eventually. I promise.
Your mother just came downstairs. She said you had about 210ml of Aptamil when I asked. So it looks like eating went well.
There’s a cry you cry that breaks my soul. I know it because I cried it when your grandmother died. You get it from me and I recognise it too well. It’s the most painful thing for me to hear because it’s a pain so true and so genuine. It’s distinct and not an ordinary cry. I heard it again yesterday when I was trying to comfort you. Something wouldn’t let you be, maybe the cold. I couldn’t hold you tighter and there aren’t enough hugs I can give you. It reminds me of the grief that continues to haunt me every waking day. I have to fight to remain whole.
You were your usual self when I fed you early this morning, chatting, kicking and chewing off your hand. I recorded a minute or so of it and decided to play it back to you. You looked stunned, dazed and swallowed whole by what you were watching. I haven’t seen you this still and captivated.
At around 9:30 ish, your mother and I took you in for your second round of vaccines. You had the first dose last month and this is meant to be more of the same. Almost identically to last time, you’ve been fine all day. However, we’ve both struggled to get you to settle for more than five minutes within the last hour. I managed to calm you down to sleep for a bit.
Prior to that, you’d wake up intermittently in hysterics. And I’d have to shshshs you back to sleep while holding your hand. Your cough and cold are a lot better but not gone. That probably isn’t helping either. I feel terrible for you. Liza was mighty close to tears at the hospital. I’m sure she’s cried at some point since we got back. It was inked all over her face.
By the way, we’ve stopped giving you Calcough. It works no doubt but it’s also giving you an allergic reaction. There’s a red rash on your face and eczema on both your sleeves. Luckily, treating the latter doesn’t require medication or something we don’t already have. Just hygiene and vaseline.
Calcough probably has an additive in it, an ingredient that starts with E… E211 in this case. Liza is much the same. If she touches anything with flavours and additives, the rash is almost immediate. And she didn’t eat these types of foods during her pregnancy. So it’s completely foreign to your system. we tend to stay away from “E-stuffs” as we call them.
I was reading this post on Reddit and found a thought-provoking comment. OP was talking about the rising cost of living in London and how expensive private education is for anyone trying to give their child a head start. This reply in the comments got me thinking…
Honestly, if you have the means, your kid will probably be better off if, instead of paying the private school fees, you just invest 27k for him (9k of this into a junior ISA) for 18 years.
It will be very, very hard for the returns on a private school education (which I guess would be the average salary difference between private school university grads and state school university grads) to beat the investment returns on such a large figure over such a length of time.
Especially seeing as your kid would get the investment pot upfront (meaning it could keep growing across its maximum value) from their early 20s or whenever you stop contributing. Whilst the private school “returns” would still have to be earnt incrementally over a career (which could go wrong for any number of reasons).
I would rather have been a millionaire by my late 20s than have gone to a nicer school and have a bit of a better job.
I called your mother to discuss the comment and get her opinion. My parents did what they could to ready me for life. I didn’t get a bag of money at 18 but I got a mindset I could will and apply. I am a big fan of this Redditor’s line of thought and we’ll do whatever we can to give you a good base to spring from.
Yesterday was tough. We had to give you Calpol in the end despite what the nurse said. It seemed like your entire body hurt. So much so that we couldn’t move you. You screamed every time as though with every gesture you were being pierced by a million needles. Your mother couldn’t handle it. She broke down for sure.
After the bath and bottle, we swaddled you (a lot earlier than we normally do) so you could sleep. That combo of things seemed to work. We’ll do the final set of vaccines like we did the first, giving you Calpol an hour prior and between 4-6 hour intervals. According to the NCT group, the third dose is the worse so we won’t take any chances with that one.
Side note, it dawned on me that I’ve been secretly blogging for just over a year now. It flashed by. Uncharacteristically, I expected to have given up by now. Only because I thought I’d just have my hands way too full. I am by no means saying this has been easy. The experience has been so (rewardingly) hard that I’ve greyed. I don’t think these white hairs on my chin are a coincidence.
A few hours ago, we shaved all your hair off to give you a ‘boule a zéro’ as the French call it. You had a bit of a cradle cap and this was the only way to deal with it without a half measure. We used this Flake Fixer to great success, scraping it all off. Liza then applied some almond oil to your scalp. You’re good to go.
I was expecting full-on waterworks but got nothing. I figured the buzzing of the shaving machine and the sensation on your skin would give you grief but… Nada! Even the dummy we gave you as a precaution served no real purpose. I think you’re back to yourself. And thank fuck for that.
I buy most of our meat from Farmison (which I only just found out stands for Farm.Is.On). It was delivered this morning with some items missing from the box. But apparently, they’d emailed me to say my order would be short. While I was on the phone (and learning how to pronounce Farmison), I asked what email address I’d used to place the order. I have a few. The lady started saying …@myd… when I said out loud “dearlittleman.com”.
Your mother was in the kitchen overhearing the conversation. She asked how I’d get the refund voucher if I didn’t have access to that fabricated email address. I told her I’d create one. “Surely, ‘dear little man’ is taken,” she said. “I’ll find a way”, I replied.
In my paranoid mind, I thought “she’s got this figured out now”. The domain name is self-explanatory and it’s a matter of time before she types it into a browser and lands on here. But no. I don’t think she has. Mouahaha!
In other news, I don’t think I’ve heard you cough in a while. So that’s good. You’re also sleeping well into the mornings which is… Amen to that.
We had a difficult day Saturday with colic and reflux. You wouldn’t keep anything down. The crying was excessive, unusual and unlike you. I think I lost an eardrum. It’s been a while and we thought we were done with the whole spitting-up Aptamil thing. Clearly not.
You’ve also started something new. I have no clue if it’s the sound you find intriguing or interesting. But you literally bring your lips together blowing out “tzzz! tzzz!” repeatedly, every chance you get. And with that come all these bubbles of saliva, flooding down your cheeks, chin and into your neck folds which we’re trying to keep clean, dry and rash-free. It’s proving impossible. And you won’t stop doing it. I’m probably not helping either as I keep repeating the same sound to you. I’m doing it right now. But I learned it from you.
You’re also not far from crawling. That’s my guess anyway. You’re doing the perfect cobra pose and bringing your knees inwards. So it’s a matter of time now. We have no expectations of you so it’ll happen whenever it happens. Hell, you’re not even four months old yet. But until then…
I fed you a few moments earlier and left you to kick and wrestle about on the floor, mouthing off sounds and trying to eat your hands, just as you like it. You’re now in a straightjacket swaddle noisily looking for a way out at the expense of your mother trying to sleep. Or you’re just fast asleep. The crossover is a fine line for you.
Today makes you four months. I woke up to a message from my ol’ man sending his best wishes. It’s interesting to hear him talk about God and being so religious. He never was. I still don’t think he is. The church was something we all got dragged to. He’s superstitious, but not a worshipper of the Most High. Maybe it’s just old age. I found an article that seems to support the stereotype. With age comes religion.
Some developmental psychologists and theologians have posited that religion – and spirituality more broadly – creates a sense of meaning and coherence in one's life that becomes especially important during the final stages of human development (Fowler, 1981; Tornstam, 1997). Some social psychologists have suggested that religion helps soothe fear and insecurity about one's own mortality (Vail et al., 2009), especially when religion offers immortality. Because ageing tends to amplify these concerns, the thinking goes, religion becomes more important to people as they get older.
I was talking to Manu last night when your mother brought you in to say hello and you stayed for the duration. It’s not your first encounter but another moment to cherish nonetheless.
You still have acne. Unlikely but I think it’s heat related (as you can be overdressed sometimes for the weather). I found a list of possible causes but it seems modern medicine is none the wiser. We’ve been doing your laundry with ours so Liza thinks it’s the detergent we’re using. To that, she bought this special baby laundry liquid. I hope it works.
