Thursday, 28 June, 2018

Today Avani is exactly 7 months 19 days today. Born on Thu 9 Nov, 2017, she is exactly 33 weeks old today. Today also happens to be the first day Papa will be with Avani while Mumma goes to work. This is planned to continue for the next 12 weeks since Papa got a leave from work to do his papa duties. :)

Time: 11:21

Avani woke up happy and rested after an approx 2 hours nap at 10:55 am. Mumma had left for work. After a quick round of look-at-Avani-in-the-mirror, efforts to feed milk (of course breastmilk) began. After 3-4 sips, Avani started a new thing: blowing raspberries. :D

Very soon, she was blowing raspberries with milk in her mouth rendering all efforts futile. Then came the trains and the monkey and the big “hit me” toy but none could entice Avani as much as the 1.5 mm headphone jack hanging carelessly from the edge of the drawers platform.

Around 11:15 am, efforts to feed were resumed while led to more “violent” raspberries. :P Her playfulness are matched by her nanny’s (Lakshmi) patience. Papa saved the day by making the spouty cup into a rocket which Avani followed curiously while the mock engine sounds intrigued her. The rocket landed many times on Avani’s mouth and she finished her first 70 ml of milk and became a good girl. A few mins of crawling about happened while this is being typed.

Time: 12:33

A small potty situation happened at 11:28 am and was diffused without blowout. Soon Avani got a nice oil massage from her nanny (the best massage till date according to her nanny - my beginner’s luck working in overdrive). After some chewing her teether and tumbling around on her makeshift floor bed, Avani got ready for her bath at 12 noon. Papa had to intervene because baby cried out loud as soon as bum touched the bathtub floor. Some jostling and splashing later, Avani was contentedly enjoying her time in the welcoming embrace of the tepid water.

Once bathed and dried, habitually, she looked to be fed. Lakshmi had thought ahead and the milk was warmed, bottled and ready. Avani had 2-3 sip fulls and she was done. She gestured her desire to sleep by cutely rubbing her eyes and making the slight frowns. Papa was quick to catch the cues and the jukebox today had songs from the movie Humraaz - Kisi patthar ki moorat se and Tum agar saath... Avani entered the dungeons of slumber within 4-6 mins of the boring yet enthusiastic vocals at 12:30 pm.

Time: 14:47

Avani woke up after a good 90 mins nap. She went near the balcony door and played with her trains - visibly happy!

Her lunch had been readied - ragi chilla. She sat on her booster chair eager to eat as is usual for this independent eater. :) She had 3 or 4 bites on her own after which she just played with or threw around her food. Either she didn’t like it or the small morsels were not enough to satiate her hunger. My second inference was proven right when she finished her leftover bottle from earlier (~60 ml) in under a minute of sheer eagerness. Once over, she looked for more. Lakshmi got into action and quickly fished out one more bottle of stored breast milk from the refrigerator and warmed it. Papa distracted the still hungry Avani with his weird histrionics. Once available, Avani went bottoms-up on this bottle (~70 ml) too!

Time: 16:16

We brought Avani back to her booster chair to see if she’d have her leftover food but after playing awhile with it, she dismissed the food with a firm shake of her hand - ok maybe it was not firm. But, she surely didn’t seem interested in it. It was not the same for the glass of water which followed. She drank up with alacrity. Once cleaned up, the party moved to the floor bed where Avani had got interested in Papa’s specs and took a tumble while trying to reach for them with both hands while standing up! A quick sob and some consolation later - all was well. This was soon followed by another head bumping into floor incident which took a little longer to emerge from. “All in a day’s work,” says Avani. :) Once Lakshmi was done with her lunch, Papa had his lunch while watching Black Mirror Episode 1. Avani played on the floor around/under the dining table. At 1550, since she seemed cranky, papa sang her to sleep. Avani slept off at 4 pm and Papa is sitting in the same room typing this while Lakshmi’s cooking dinner.