Note: ok this is very late but I did actually write it on 1st of March, meant to come back and add photos and then forgot about it. So everything is accurate as of a month and a half ago!

Wow, what a month. It’s really hard to believe that Kiran is one month old already and Maya is getting more and more grown up every day. I think it’s fair to say that this month has been challenging but nowhere near as hard as I thought it was going to be (helped of course by having lots of family around to help and a pretty laid back newborn).

So lets start with Kiran. He’s been chubbing up nicely the last few weeks after his skinny beginnings and already looks like a completley different baby. He’s outgrown all his newborn clothes (except the sleepsuits from mothercare which are massive) and I won’t be suprised if he’s close to 5kg when we go for his checkup next week (update – he was 5.6kg, haha!).

He’s been lifting his head from my shoulder since a few days old and he will lift it up for a few seconds when lying on his front (not a big fan of tummy time so far though!). Like his sister, he’s been able to roll from his back to his side pretty much from birth.

The first couple of weeks, Kiran pretty much just slept all the time, just waking for a quick feed. Even when he woke up he barely cried. This coupled with some nice stretches of sleep at night meant I’ve felt pretty well rested for being the mother of a newborn and toddler and I certainly didn’t experience the sleep deprivation I had with Maya. From about week 3 he started being more alert and a bit harder to settle and he certainly cries a lot more now, usually being awake for most of the morning (with short catnaps) and having an unsettled crying period in the late afternoon. He’s still a really easy baby though and is a fantastic sleeper at night! For example 2 nights ago he just fed at 10pm, 1am and 4.30am before we got up for the day around 7 and last night I swear I fed him at 9.30 and he slept the entire night! I even tried to feed him at 4.30 when maya woke up but he wasn’t interested. Well I’m not complaining! Maya too seems to be settling into the new night time arrangement although she much prefers me over made settling her. She’s got a lot better at sleeping through Kiran’s cries (helped by some white noise to muffle the sound).

Maya is most definitely no longer a baby and now a little girl who definitely knows what she wants! Tantrums have increased and there is a lot of screaming and throwing herself on the floor when she doesn’t get her own way. On the other hand I think she’s dealt with Kiran’s arrival amazingly and jealousy hasn’t been an issue atall (she gets more jealous of me hugging made!). She does get upset if she wants me and I can’t settle her because I’m in the middle of feeding Kiran but I think that’s perfectly acceptable. She has been fascinated by kiran from the start and usually the first thing she says when she wakes up is “baby?” She loves giving him kisses and we’re working on getting her to be more gentle and not hit his head/suffocate him with a blanket/scream in his face. She also wipes his mouth with a muslin and pats the cushion/bed next to her to show she wants him put next to her. Very cute :). She’s started copying us doing a high pitched voice when she talks to him and sometimes calls him ‘ran’ instead of baby.

She’s really getting into imaginative play and pretends to feed her doll, brush its teeth and put a nappy on. She also likes ‘cooking’ with bits of plant and a plastic spoon. If she has her cuddly while she’s eating she’ll usually try to feed it some food too.

Books are a favourite after months of her not having the attention span for anything but pop up books. She’ll now go and pick out books and bring them over for us to read out to her (and throw a tantrum if we don’t immediately). She has her favourites, particularly books about animals (she’ll ask for ‘muls’ and then do the animal noises) and the ‘my new baby’ book I bought her when I was pregnant – she looks at the pictures and says “baby bath!” “baby poo!”

Maya has had a bit of a language explosion over the last few weeks and seems to come out with new words every day. Most words she only says the last syllable of but we understand what she’s saying. Her understanding continues to amaze me too and she can understand nearly every instruction we give her in either english or indonesian. For example the other day I told her to get her toothbrush out of the baby bag and she started looking for it in the main compartment. I said “no, it’s in the front pocket” and she stopped, went in the front pocket, took the toothbrush and started brushing her teeth!

Here are the words she says so far that I can remember (there were more but i lost the list when my pc died and now at 17.5 months her vocabulary is just ridiculous so it would be easier to write down the words she doesn’t know!):

English
cat
monkey
giraffe
animals
finished
no
hair
nose
mouth
hand
teeth
apple
baby
fish
nappy
bath
horse
poo
DVD

Indonesian/Balinese
pisang (banana)
nasi (rice)
takut (scared)
kupu kupu (butterfly)
ikan (fish)
buku (book)
api (fire)
buah (fruit)
enak (tasty)
kopi (coffee)
pipis (wee)
air (water)
mimik (suck)
singyak (don’t want)
makan (eat)
kapal (aeroplane)
buka (open)

bubuk (sleep)

kaki (foot)

obat (medicine)

 

People & misc
nyam nyam (food – she’ll say this if I mention “breakfast”, “lunch”, “dinner”, “snack”, “food” or “eat”)
brrm brrm (motorbike or car)
mama
papa
duta (cousin)
iris (cousin)
komang (auntie)
ninny (grandmother)

pekak (grandfather)