she crawls like a little commando girl, the same way her big brother used to when he was a baby. she creeps all over the house, discovering new nooks and crannies, collecting a trail of dust and hairball along the way. when her ‘engine’ stalls as she contemplates her next destination, her legs go kick-kick-kick behind her, like a curious little kitten swishing its tail. her favourite room is her big brother’s, which has plenty of things, big and small, for her to grab at and stuff into her mouth.
she loves to be held up on her feet, and when she hears some music or mummy singing her scratchy renditions of “tepuk amai-amai”, she will attempt to clap her hands. attempt, because the claps come off totally inaudible. her favourite nursery rhyme is humpty dumpty, especially the part where he falls.
she adores her big brother – still! – and her face lights up in a bright cheesy grin whenever she sees him. repeated acts of big brother silliness elicits fits of giggles from the little one, and she will pull at his hair to slobber him at any given occassion. the big brother loves the attention, the adoration clearly mutual, hair-pulling and face-slobbering notwithstanding.
she eats brown rice porridge with veges for lunch, and mushed up fruits like bananas, apples, pears, papayas, and tomorrow, avocado (finally!), for tea time. i think she eats much better than me. and poops better too.
she still drinks mummy’s milk full time. well what do you expect, right? the freezer is still full of frozen bags of milk, barely needed because her mummy prefers to give the fresher stuff – she’s hardcore like that. sometimes her big brother unwittingly chugs down his friso laced with mummy’s milk. like today, when we realised there was only one scoop left in the friso tin. one time, we tried getting her to nurse on mummy’s good friend, for the heck of it, but barely a few suckles in and she realised that it wasn’t mummy. so it looks like she can still marry abang rayhan in future, lol! ;p
she doesn’t know yet that ‘bye-bye’ means mummy will be going out of the door and leaving her behind for some ten hours or so. so she cluelessly breaks into that disarming grin of hers and jumps up and down excitably when i wave ‘bye bye!’ and go to work. oh, wait till she eventually gets it.
she has a hard time sleeping in the day now, long gone is the time when all she ever seemed to do was sleep. she takes a few half-hour power naps, much to the chagrin of her grandma, but sleep she does at night, a good nine hours before calling out to me in the morning like a faithful alarm clock.
sometimes she irritates me, sometimes she amazes me; sometimes i resent her, sometimes i adore her; sometimes i feel drained by her, sometimes i just want to smother her soft puffy cheeks; sometimes i gladly push her to the nearest available arms, sometimes i want her back in my arms and no one else’s.
sometimes i think i can’t go through this whole baby thing again. sometimes i think… we’ll be ok, she and i.
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