10th to 16th February 2014

Monday, 10th February 2014
Put Gio to sleep at around 9:20 and stayed by his crib.
He stood up a few times and each time I made him lie down again.
He kept tossing and turning, until I thought of just taking him back to the living room until he gets sleepy.
Then he fell asleep!

Tuesday, 11th Feb 2014
Gio woke up around 1:30 a.m. My wife took him and breastfed him. He started sleeping in our bed.
My wife took him back to his crib.
He started crying. This went on till maybe 2:30 at which point my wife had had enough and wanted to compel him to sleep.
I offered to put him to sleep.
I kept physically preventing him from getting up. He kept crying and kicking his legs.
After some time, my wife came and made him lie down with comforting words and he was silent for a while. She got back into our bed and Gio started crying again.
I again went and made him lie down, switched off the night light and patted him.
He finally drifted off to sleep at maybe 3:30 a.m. or so.

Friday, 14th Feb

Gio was glad to meet a dog from the neighbourhood. He was not afraid to touch it.
I think this change came about after he touched the neighbour’s cat.
In Malindi, he was fascinated by the dog there, but he never reached out to touch it.

Saturday, 15th February

Sunday, 16th Feb
Went to visit some friends who got a baby two months ago.
We passed by Smart Baby to buy the new baby something.
In our bargaining pitch, we said we were long-standing customers and we mentioned the time we came shopping with Gio when he was just a week old and we were not allowed into the compound and it was drizzling at the time. The man remembered the incident and gave us 100/- discount 😀
(Smart Baby has since relocated from that no-visitors’-cars location, but did not move very far away).

At our friend’s place, Gio was fascinated by the baby and tried to touch his eyes. Why do babies do that?
Gio seemed to enjoy walking to and fro, sometimes falling down, but getting up again.

We intend to stop giving him milk to see if the rash will go away.

My wife and I went out to dinner, so my wife instructed the nanny to put Gio to bed at around 9:20 p.m.
My wife told her to stay with him in the room until he falls asleep.
Later, the nanny said Gio only cried a bit.

3rd to 9th February 2014 – Sleep Training

Monday, 3rd February 2014
Gio was imitating what my wife was saying

Wednesday, 5th February – Sleep training Begins
Maybe 4:00 a.m. Gio was playing and tossing himself on our bed.
I thought:
He can crawl off and fall.
He is headbutting me.
He could hurt himself against the bed.
He is keeping us from sleeping.

Being a fairly practical man, I got up, picked Gio and put him in his crib.
He cried and cried. He shrieked, he screamed.
He tried to climb out of the crib. (I felt pity when I saw this)
I picked my phone at 4:30 to distract myself, since I was not sleeping with all this ruckus.
At about 4:55, after suffering in silence, I think, my wife sought my permission, then put Gio to lie down and he slept

I went to town with Gio in the car.  I was to pick my sister and dad and come home with them.
After a lot of back and forth about meeting points and times, I was again alone in the car with Gio. The car was overheating. I drove into Nakumatt Lifestyle’s basement parking to cool the car. It was dark in the basement. Gio was really crying. He was hungry and possibly did not like the darkness.  He was also sweating. (It was a hot day and it is usually hot in the basement)
After driving out, I drove to a petrol station to have the car looked at.
I gave Gio water at petrol station.
He drank the water and cried some more.
I finally picked my dad and nephew.
Nephew gave Gio yoghurt and mango that was in the car.
Having been fed, Gio now played with nephew.

Night
Gio and I went to the bedroom.
He stood in his crib crying.
I picked him and carried him in my arms like a small baby.
He slept. I could smell that his diaper needed changing.
Wife came back from driving my sister home.
We changed Gio’s diaper.
He slept.

Thursday, 6th February

Gio woke up and played in his crib.
“Have you scarred the baby?” my wife asked.

A friend of ours came to borrow Gio’s baby seat.

At night, I put Gio in his crib, patted him and he slept.

Friday, 7th February
Put Gio to bed and stood over the crib until he slept.

Saturday, 8th February
Put Gio in his crib and left the room.

Went back to bedroom after about 20 minutes, made him lie down and he slept.

Sunday, 9th February
Gio is developing a rash.

Went visiting our cousin Nick from Mombasa in hospital
Gio walked about on the grass

Night: Gio cried from 9:32 p.m. to 10:15p.m. I had left him alone in the bedroom.
Our visiting cousin suggested I go make him lie down
My wife asked if she could go make him lie down
I went, made him lie down and he slept.
This does not seem to be working very well.

27th Jan to 2nd Feb 2014 – Cow Milk and Walking

Monday, 27th January 2014

Tried to give Gio regular (cow) milk in a bottle. He sucked a few times and turned away. Tried again after a few minutes and he still rejected it. Mixed some with his morning porridge. I thought maybe I should try first with only some of the porridge, so that if he rejects that, I just give him his normal porridge, but I did not feel like separating the porridge. Fortunately he took all of the porridge.

29th January 2014

01st February 2014

2nd February 2014
Gio now stands and walks voluntarily

Changes In Blog Updates

Hello dear readers,

When this blog was started, the aim was to give day-by-day updates and to post pictures for each day for a year. I mostly succeeded. I think I posted pictures for maybe 360 of the 365 days. But it is a lot of work. Since I received one or two requests to continue posting, I will do so, but with a few changes:

1)  In general,  will be posting posts covering a week each. There may be a few extras.

2) There will no longer be a mandatory picture for each day.

Thanks for reading and for following Gio’s life.

Gio’s Dad, photographer and Chief Blogger

Baby Exercise

While looking through Gio’s first year pics, I came across this video from 23rd March 2013

25th Jan 2014 Video

Here is the video that was supposed to be in this post.

24th to 26th Jan 2014 – Standing, Walking

24th Jan 2014 – Standing and Walking

Gio was standing, falling or sitting, standing again, in the sitting room.
The camera was in the bedroom. Sigh!
I went and got the camera.
Gio actually continued getting up on his feet.
Camera was low on battery charge and shot off before I recorded. (!!)
I got my wife’s phone to record on that instead.
The phone said that it was running low on space. (Imagine that! Now??)
But it did record.

Saturday, 25th January 2014
Gio was standing willingly and freely. He was even taking a few steps.

26th Jan 2014

Year 1 Pics

You can click the pics for bigger versions.

Note the hair 🙂 disappearing and returning

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

First feed of solids

August

September

October

November

December

January 2014

23rd January 2014 – Happy Birthday!

23rd January 2014 – Gio Turns One
I had read somewhere that generally, for small children, the number of children to invite to a birthday party should be the child’s age plus one. So the plan was to invite the two children from the block who Gio usually sees and plays with. The guest list then extended to our Marriage Enrichment Group (who all have children born between July 2012 and August 2013) then it included all the children in our block.

Then it seems my wife just kept stretching the guest list as days went by until it had maybe 30 adults! To further complicate matters, she wanted the birthday celebrated on the actual date of birth, a Thursday, and not moved to a more convenient Saturday, for example.