Where's Swe-cha ?

We made it to March's photo board at daycare. Can you see where Swe-cha is ?

He is in 2 photos, can you find both of them ?

Daycare Milestone

Swe-cha hit a daycare milestone today. He'll be staying full-time at daycare starting today because I (Mommy is) am picking up some part-time work.

I was so anxious when I dropped him off at daycare this morning and he seems to have picked up some of this anxiety because he was happy when we left the house and was still happy when we entered the daycare. But as soon as his jacket was taken off and he was let go, he would run around the daycare perimeter and run back to me before taking off again. He cried when he saw me leave but he stopped soon after.

I called DC (daycare) at around 1p to check up on him and was told that he finished all of his food. I'm relieved. Tomorrow, I'll send 2 jars of baby food with him as he's been steadily eating 1.5 to 2 jars of food each meal. I didn't think that he'll eat today so I only sent him 1.

I'm hoping that he takes a long nap there today, I'm almost afraid to call, scared that the ringing of the phone might wake him up and also scared of what I might hear. In any case, I'll get an update when I pick him up this afternoon.

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Edit: Turns out that he ALMOST finished his jar of food this morning, he left a few spoonfuls but this is okay.

He also only napped for 20 minutes at DC, this is unusual for him as he usually naps between 3 to 4 hrs at home. Hopefully, he adjusts to fulltime care at DC in the next few days.

15 months

Dear Swe-cha,

I can't believe that you are 15 months old now. You now love going to daycare everyday, you readily go to C's arms when I drop you off in the morning and once you're w/ C, you immediately point or lean your body towards the play area inside so that she'll bring you there.

You love playing at daycare, each time I pick you up, you're off playing at a different area. One day, you're at the jungle toy, you're off pushing a train the next day, and the next, you're opening cabinets and exploring the play kitchen. One day, you were even running round and round the dining area shouting "ahhhh" and there were 2 other boys doing the same thing. They stopped doing that as soon as you did when you walked over to me, I like to think that you're the instigator of that little game and that makes me smile. You're the youngest and already the ringleader.

You love singing or rather, you love making Daddy and Mommy sing. Your favorite song is "Baa-baa black sheep" and "itsy bitsy spider". You would always do the actions for the songs when you want us to sing it for you. You can also do the actions for "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

You love to flip through your books and you would point to your favorite pages and ask Mommy to read it for you.

You may not be talking yet but you can certainly make yourself understood via signs, so far you can do the following:

- where

- daddy

- nobody

- milk

- food

We love you so much babe. You are the greatest blessing that we have ever received.

Love,

Mommy & Daddy

Daycare feeding

I'm almost afraid to say it out loud but I do want to memorialize the occasion in this blog so I'm just gonna type it here.

Swe-cha started eating at daycare yesterday. He at 1/2 of his baby food yesterday and 3/4 of his food today. It looks like the timing of the meal was the issue. On paper, the daycare is supposed to have lunch at 12 - 12:45 but in reality, they sit the kids down for lunch at around 11:30 and by then, Swe-cha just isn't hungry so he doesn't eat.

By 12nn, he's hungry and the staff thinks he's sleepy (because he did refuse food earlier) and they try to get him to sleep but he doesn't want to so he starts crying because he's starving. This dawned on me last Monday so I asked them to not try to make him sleep at 12nn when he is cranky because he is *not* sleepy but to offer him food instead and it worked like a charm.

This morning, I gave him his breakfast at 7:45 instead of 8:15 so he'd be ready for lunch before 12. This seems to have worked too.

Keeping my fingers crossed, I hope he improves or keeps this up at the very least.

Helping Mommy

Our building's basement storage area had minor flooding during the recent rains and as luck would have it, our only damage turned out to be a box full of my old office stuff (mostly junk).

We decided to throw them into the shredder and junked the entire box. That was cathartic for Mommy... and looks like it was fun for Swe-cha too.

First daycare outing

We had great weather this morning and temps rose to 70 degrees.

While dropping Swe-cha off at the daycare, the staff and the kids were walking around in front of the building, they were practicing walking because the daycare had decided to bring the kids to the park today for some outdoor fun.

So like the stalker-mom that I am, I dropped by (w/ the daycare owner's permission, of course) while the kids were playing at the park to play papparazzi to my kid. I took some pictures of him w/o him seeing me and here is one of them.

He looks sad or walang pakialam in the pictures but I swear, he looked like he was enjoying himself. I observed him from the side and the back and he would wave his arms about and swing his legs to and fro. He's always enjoyed watching other kids play when we go to church (we stay in the mother's room) and today was no exception. I stayed there more than minutes and he did not ask to be let out of the stroller at all, he was content sitting there and watching the other kids. C told me that he's such a good boy, he was happy to be out for a walk. Now, am just hoping that C remembers to give him a book to flip through during lunch time and I hope that he eats at daycare today.

I can't wait till he's big enough to run around like the other kids, I'm sure he will enjoy climbing up the jungle gym and going down on the slide so much!

Wheels on the Wagon

Swe-cha loves playing with wheels. He would often be found flipping his toy cars, trucks, and wagon (see picture) over so that he can flick the wheels and watch them go round and round. He tries to do the same thing with his stroller, he would try and force the wheels to turn.

This picture was taken when he was playing with the wagon wheels, he looked at me and smiled when I started singing "The wheels on the wagon go round and round..." to the tune of the "wheels on the bus" song.

Daycare week 4: lunch woes

Okay, so mommy (and daddy) realizes where she went wrong again.

We've been trying and trying to get Swe-cha to eat at daycare but he refuses. He would sit there and complain and just not touch his food. Sometimes, he'd be crying by the time I pick him up because he's starving!

We get home and he would be panting and pulling on my shirt, refusing to let me walk away. He would also be pulling on my arm in an effort to get the spoon into his mouth quickly. Yes,marunong rin pala siyang magutom.

Yesterday, I realized why he might not be eating at daycare. You see, he's used to watching videos while he eats at home. Yes, yes... I know. I know it's wrong and I've been getting a lot of flack from friends (especially A and R, *hiya*). I know it's wrong and that this is no excuse,.. it's just that it seems that "going the easier path" has been our motto in rearing Swe-cha. With that, mealtimes became dependent on videos because it's easier to feed him while he's distracted.

So yesterday afternoon, I started feeding him w/o videos. It went well on snacktime, I gave him a book to flip through (and I read pages that he would point to every now and then) and he ate his yogurt w/o much fussing.

Dinner time went relatively well too. He started screaming halfway through feeding and kept throwing his book away. I'd let him scream and when he quiets down, I'd offer him some food and he would eat naman. This went on until he almost finished his food, he just left 2 spoonfuls and this is good.

Breakfast this morning went the same way as dinner last night. We started off okay and he starts screaming midway. I'd just let him scream and point out his toy again and he'd start eating. He finished his food.

I packed a book in his bag today and told J about the videos and what we're doing. I asked if she could give him a toy when she offers him lunch today and she said yes. Let's see how he does later.

Daycare week 3 review

Week 3 at daycare went really really well. No more crying, no more screaming.

Morning hand-offs are smooth-sailing! I was actually quite surprised because I expected some crying on Monday morning (as I was already pre-warned by the owner that even the regulars start crying on Monday mornings as they have been used to being with their parents the whole weekend) but he went with C as soon as I took off his jacket and he went to his "jungle station" inside the play area.

Pickups have been going well too. He's been very good at staying awake and not napping till 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon and then he sleeps 3 to 4 hours. There are a few times when he still falls asleep, usually when he slept late the night before or woke up extra early that morning.

Next week, I'll pick him up a few minutes later than usual so that the daycare can start offering him lunch.

Self-feeding (2)

Swe-cha first expressed an interest in self-feeding during his 7th month. He did it a few times and then quickly lost interest.

Tonight, he refused to be fed and kept reaching for the bowl and spoon. I gave him his own plate and spoon to play with and Daddy tried to feed him again, he refused.

Eventually, Daddy figured out that Swe-cha wanted to scoop his own food from his plate and just play with his food. He has not had any appetite all day - a side-effect of his cough and cold (yes, again!).

Mommy prepared misua soup for daddy, who is having wisdom teeth issues, and put some on Swe-cha's plate. He played with it as well.

Every now and then, he'd succeed in scooping some food w/ the spoon and would sometimes get the right end of the spoon into his mouth too. Kaya lang, what little he is able to put into his mouth, he sometimes spits it out too.

This picture was taken when he started eating. By the time he was finished, his whole tray (even the white portion), plate (top & bottom), both arms, whole face and even his hair would be covered in food.

Daycare week 2

We kept Swe-cha home last Friday because he was sniffling and it was raining hard. His absence from daycare on Friday turned out to be a good call because by afternoon, he was feverish (101). His fever spiked up that night and would reach (104). Daddy and I were up the whole night nursing his fever and giving him alternate doses of Ibuprofen and Acetamenophen every 3 hrs as per the doctor's recommendations.

We brought him to his doctor on Saturday morning to be checked out and there are no signs of infection (sis says this is not surprising as the infection, if any, would not have ample time to manifest yet). His fever broke early Sunday morning but came back again (low grade) on Sunday afternoon.

Schedule-wise, he has been very good at falling asleep by 10p and waking up 8-ish by himself. This made it easier for me because half of me wanted to stick to the schedule so he'd get used to it and the other half of me wanted to let him sleep in because of his fever.

We decided to keep Swe-cha home one more day to observe, it was also a rainy Monday yesterday so the decision to keep him home was easy to make. The decision to send him back to daycare today (Tuesday) was a little harder to make. Hubby and I disagreed (I wanted to bring him to daycare, hubby wanted to keep him home one more day). He eventually agreed with me when I pointed out that:
- keeping him one more day at home will not make the symptoms (runny nose & cough) go away, he will still have that tomorrow as the common cold usually runs 7 to 10 days.
- the longer we keep him away from daycare, the more he will get used to being at home again. In essence, all that crying he did last week while he was getting used to being in daycare will be wasted.

Hubby later tells me that he made his decision after checking up on Tuesday's weather. If there was going to be rain, he will put his foot down. As it turns out, today turns out to be a nice and sunny day.

So, I dropped him off at daycare this morning and noticed that half the kids are out. Yep, there is a cold & cough epidemic at the daycare. J tells me that there were more kids absent yesterday. Swe-cha is so clingy to me this morning. He refused to let go of me, he must've gotten used to being with me 24/7 again so bringing him back to daycare was a good idea today. I left him w/ the sitters, crying, but he stopped a few seconds after I walked out the door. I peeked through the glass and being caried by and hugging C.

I went to get some groceries after dropping him off and then passed by the daycare on my way home to check up on him. I peek thru the windows and don't see him. I put my head in the door and hear silence. Good. J sees me and tells me that he's been crying on and off - he would play and then cry and then play and then cry - and right on cue, I hear Swe-cha crying. Sigh.

Hope the rest of the day goes easier on him.