Hellobee

Just this week it occurred to me, this is getting really fun. Jujube is five months old! This is my first and currently only child so I’m infatuated with watching her grow. She’s becoming so engaged with the world and with us right now. We’ve seen a huge increase in her mobility, talkativeness, chuckles over the last two weeks alone. Babies grow so incredibly fast (with the cloth diapers on she’s now in some 9-12 month clothes!), so we have been trying to accommodate her rapid new phases with things that will meet her where she’s at, while trying not to be constantly consuming new things. Our main solution to this is to rely on hand me downs or gifts as well as making secondhand purchases for what we need and can’t borrow. I definitely feel like 5 months old was a growth marker where she suddenly was ready for a whole new set of baby items that I hadn’t found useful as of yet. When she started rolling we were so sad to retire her beloved Woombie that a good friend mailed to us!

New things that have been helpful though (and thankfully accessible through a secondhand Facebook forum in Chiang Mai) have been a high chair (she’s about to outgrow the Bumbo), a sensory toy, a touchy-feeling fabric bedtime book, and I pulled out a few gifts and hand me downs we’d received when we were back in the US as well: bamboo and silicone baby spoons, footie pajamas, a Lamaze doll, and a Sophie la Girafe teether. I also made her a new drool bib from a towel we had around and some cute fabric. She’s a bit of a barfer!

Our latest and greatest secondhand find has been one of those rolling walkers that have been illegal in the US for a long time now. How tragic! She has really come alive in her little chair, walking herself all over the house. Thankfully we now live in a one storey! I do have to keep a casual eye on her at all times because she is starting to get determined to get into things with her new wheels, but it’s really precious and fun to watch her become more capable. It’s as if this week she blossomed into a little person with desires, not just needs.

I finally understand why people are obsessed with their kids, bragging about simple things they do. It’s a mind-blowing experience to see a person go from non-existent to living and breathing but completely dependent on you for everything, to owning their own existence and following the natural progression of human life. It’s the most amazing thing. The comedian Tig Notaro has a great bit on this phenomenon.

Here’s a little snapshot of our non-exceptional but extra special 5-month-old!

• She’s full of those gummy, heart-melting open-mouthed smiles.
• She’s sampling real food: Jujube began showing interest in food around 4 months and we gave her a taste of banana around 4.5 months old. She hated using her hands but immediately grabbed a hold of the spoon, so we’ve been having her sit with us at meals and letting her taste or suck on things we’re eating if there’s something appropriate for her like banana, carrot, cucumber, potato or oatmeal.
• She loves those feet. I need to start wiping them off when I take her out of the walker because they get a little dirty and next thing I know she’s sticking them right in her mouth.
• She’s started mimicking us a little and making sounds that will someday turn into language. Her first “word” was, “Glumf!” but she says things that sure sound a lot like “hello!”
• She loves singing! Basically she sits on her dad and he sings to her and she starts hollering in different tones and it’s the cutest thing ever.
• We’ve taken her swimming every few weeks since she was 6 weeks old and early on she’d often fuss if we took her feet out of the water but otherwise she just seemed really focused, not necessarily having fun. The day she turned 5 months old, we took her to the pool again and she was so much more engaged! She really enjoyed splashing the water and kicking around as if she was swimming.
• I am doing a casual version of Elimination Communication with her and have been since she was 5 weeks old. At 5 months she’s gotten into the habit of usually doing one big bowel movement on the infant potty in the morning and then one or two pees on the potty throughout the day if I’m around and engaged enough to catch her cues. I don’t worry about taking every opportunity or fully training her this young, but I love that the potty is a comfortable option for her already.
• She is really good at rolling over now. This escalated really quickly because she was having a hard time with it just two weeks ago, and now I find her every which way in her crib and I can’t leave her alone without coming back and finding her a few feet away from where I left her. It’s the oddest thing to have my little Jujube be in a completely different configuration than when I left her now, since for the previous 5 months she stayed put!
• Her sleep is getting a little more routine since I’ve been working with her to establish set bed and wake times, but we are still searching for her sleep schedule. She wakes at least once at night generally but will go back to sleep this week with just a few pats so I’m hoping that she’ll start sleeping through the night soon!
• When she’s tired, I’ve been getting what feel like real snuggles lately where she’s awake and alert but relaxed and holding on to me. Before it seemed like she was either asleep on me or awake and squirming on me.

Above all, she’s happy and healthy and we are so incredibly grateful.