Tag: parenting

Many parenting books say that at the age of about two months a child starts to recognize family members. Some go as far as describe the reaction – smile and the rise of activity. But none of them can describe it properly and thus don’t spoil the surprise.

Yesterday, I woke up and went to check upon Maxim. He was taken care of by his grandma and so I didn’t have to rush, but I did anyway, because I missed him too much (he was sleeping when I got back from work). He was in his cradle and he was awake, but silent. He looked kind of bored – didn’t want to sleep and didn’t want to play with his toys. But the moment he saw me everything changed. First, he gave me one of his Hollywood smiles and than he started waving his hands and legs as fast as he could. He almost jumped out of his cradle, so glad he was to see me.

I picked him up and looked straight into my eyes with the look saying something like ‘Dad, where the hack have you been for the last 12 hours? I was all lonely here without you! Let us go play now!’. And he smiled. Even if I somehow can misunderstand his looks, his smile is rock solid definite. And when I see it, coupled with the looks, I feel like a Japanese cherry garden blossoms inside of me. Kind of like they show it on Discovery, in fast forward mode with millions of flowers opening at a split second. Amazing that is, I tell you.

Later Maxim repeated his recognition smiley dance several times both for me and Olga. Not yet for grandma though.

Today marks the end of 9th week of Olga’s and my parenthood. Times slow starts moving again and hopefully will catch up in a few weeks or month.

Maxim is growing and developing at a speed of light. He’s learning so much every day that I don’t even attempt to blog it all. New sounds, new looks, new moves – we are clapping our hands about something cute in the morning, and by the afternoon we don’t notice it anymore, because he is doing it all the time and he has learned a bunch of new stuff already. I’m thinking about making a short movie showing all of his activities (or at least those that he would display during the shooting time). I just have to find the video camera (but I think I know where from I will find it :) ).

From the list of major milestones, today was the first time we used bast whisp (I am not sure this is the correct turm, but it was the only one suggested by the dictionary) to wash Maxim. He was hand washed before, but now he is one step more into the adult life. I think he didn’t mind it at all.

Maxim is two month today.

He has grown quite a bit and learned a bunch of new tricks. Firstly, he makes lots and lots of sounds. Some of them even sound like words, although that can’t yet be true. ‘Ahha’, ‘uhhu’, ‘ohh’, ‘ehh’, ‘tai’ (which sounds like Russian word ‘give’ – ‘дай’), ‘mahna’ (which sounds like ‘mama’, which is Russian for ‘mother’), ‘khala’ (which sounds like the name of his grandma Galina – ‘ГалÑ?’), ‘puh’ (which sounds like ‘poo’) are all a part of his daily baby talk along with a bunch of other sounds. Secondly, he is following objects with his eyes pretty good now. Before he was only interested in faces, but now he looks and everything. Thirdly, he can hold things, even if that is only for a little while. His hands are much more under control these days too. His movements are much smoother and grip is much stronger. He also learned how to play with his toys that are hanging in his bed. Which made him learn an important bit – fourthly – to lay alone in the bed. Until now he was either sleeping or hold by either me or Olga. Now he can lay alone silently in the bed hitting his toys with both hands like there is no tomorrow.

We have also taken him to the pediatrician office for the two month check and vaccination. Our observation that Maxim has grown a lot was confirmed there with a number of measurements. He weights 5650 grams now. That means that he has gained about 400 grams in the last 10 days or so. It also adds up to about 1400 grams of gain for the last month. Maxim is also 60 centimeters long, which means that he grew about 4 centimeters in one month. His head measurement is slightly over 40 centimeters. These numbers show that he is growing normally. He is slightly bigger than average for his age and his progress is a bit more than average baby gets. That’s all good.

Maxim was also vaccinated with the Hexa today. Hexa is a combined vaccination against six deseases. If I get them right, these are Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis (DTaP), Haemophilus Influenza type B (Hib), Inactivated Polio (IPV) and Hepatitis B. Until recently, there were two vaccinations against a group of three deaseses, but progress in medicine now allows for a combined vaccination against all six. Dr.Simos said that most of the kids live through the injection just fine, with only 2-3% of them having high temperature and other side effects. Maxim, after the injection, got all sleepy and snobbish. His temperature is a bit higher than usual, but surely below the OMG area. He is taking it nice and slow and we are monitoring him.

Today we were also given a choice by Dr.Simos between two vaccination plans to follow for the next year or so. One plan was like the Basic Vaccinations offerring with everything that is required. The second plan was like Premium Vaccinations, which offered earlier protection agains a couple of deseases such as Polio. The Premium offerring has two more vaccinations which cost roughly about 95 CYP altogether. We have about a month to think about these and choose the right program.

On one hand I, of course, want all the possible protection for Maxim that I can get him. On the other hand, I wonder if torturing a two-three month baby with all sorts of viruses is really worth it. Anyway, I’ll be doing talking with a bunch of parents and lots of Googling before making the deÑ?ision.

These are all news on this front so far…