She's doing push-ups!

Finally my Tinto is doing push-ups. I tell you, that girl takes her sweet time to develop. I can just hear her saying "Look. I'm just a baby. Just because other babies are doing it, doesn't mean you have to rush me! Let me enjoy my baby days while I can. Hmph!" Hehe. That's my girl.

She's been doing mini push-ups for ages, but now she's doing big ones. Ones where she gets right up off the floor and looks down at the world, saying "Who are YOU, muli boo?" This means she should be crawling soon. With Tinto, "soon" could mean tomorrow, next month, or next year. So we shall wait patiently, fingers crossed.

Tinto also has a funny smile which she started making 2 days ago. She give a big wide smile, with her mouth and eyes closed and her face all scrunched up. It's so funny. And yes, remind me to get the camera fixed!

And here's her favourite food at the moment.

Ripe bananas mashed into a pulp. She can finish a whole banana at one feed, the little piggy.

Ripe esi. She loves this too, probably because it's sweet. She also likes it cooked as supo esi.

Pumpkin. She likes it boiled and usually in a soup preferrably chicken or beef. With potato.

I cringe imagining the future, especially when she discovers McDonalds. Lol. We'll never hear the end of it.

According to Dr. Adams

My mom took Tino to the doctor last week.

They saw Dr John Adams, the best paediatrician in town.

He said:

1. Tino now weighs 21lbs and is 75 cm in length. 21lbs is actually overweight (waaaay overweight) for a baby her age, but in relation to her height, she is perfectly fine.

2. Her muscles lack tone. She needs to drink more water to tone up her muscles. Keige pe ua unfit. Otherwise her bones and everything are great. Her reflexes are good. Her head support is good. She does all the things she should be doing at 7 months.

3. She had nappy rash which wouldn't go away and seemed to be spreading. John said we should have brought her in earlier (bad mother me!) and that it's developed into excema - a skin irritation of red, tiny, flaky skin with cracks or tiny blisters. It didn't look that bad! But yeah. So he prescribed an oral antibiotic and a skin cream.

4. Don't let her use a walker until she is 9 months old. It's not good to force her development. Give her time and she'll get there. Phew. Tino just got a walker and I was unsure about that. Now we know!

5. Her feet are facing outwards. We need to massage it inwards at least 5 minutes every night to make sure that she doesn't become a duck. Hehe.

6. Otherwise, she's perfectly normal.

Apparently Tinto was squealing and talking and laughing at the hospital. What a charmer. Dr Adams was laughing at her and all the noise she was making at the hospital.

I felt bad not taking her to see John earlier but at least she's alright now. It's a lesson for me - thinking that I am paranoid is not a bad thing. I should take her to the doctor as soon as I notice something not right about her. The thing is, in the past I've done that, and I've taken her to Dr Herbert Peters, who keeps saying she's fine and I'm just being paranoid!!

Oh well, as long as she's fine, I don't care about anything else.

Saga of the DUMMY

Tino's favorite thing in the whole world is her dummy or pacifier. Tino's Nana bought it for her from Maria's Healthcare. We began giving it to her when she was almost 2 months old. She has become very much attached to it.

She gets antsy, complains, or can't sleep without her dummy. Whenever we go anywhere, we make sure that her dummy is safely tucked in her bag or in her mouth.

About 2 months ago, the dummy started looking worse for wear. It looked like Tino had sucked the life out of the poor thing. The teat was thin and worn. I bought her another one. I put it in her mouth and she immediately spat it back out. I tried a few times, but she kept wrinkling her little nose and spitting it out. I gave her the old one. She sucked happily on it.

I have bought dummy after dummy for her and she hates them all.

Yesterday, her dummy dropped on the ground outside. We noticed about 5 minutes later and were looking frantically everywhere for it. We found it a few metres away. The teat was chewed off and mangled. The dogs had gotten to it.

I was SO MAD. I wanted to kick something. I wanted to kick the babysitter who should've seen it drop. And I wanted to kick the damn dog who ate it.

That night I got Tino's other dummy. It's the same kind as her old one, but with a bigger teat. She would pop that one out too. I pressed on the teat until the air had all seeped out, and it looked thin and over-sucked-on like the old one.

I gave it to her and she was happy. Whew!! The sky would've fallen and the world ended if we didn't find another dummy for her.