Hey, this is E, writing my guest post after coming back from three weeks in China. When I left, G was just starting to stand on her own, and we were trying to encourage her to take a step. I carried her photos and others on my iPhone and constantly and very proudly showed them to my tripmates. Skype is the best thing in the world, being able to video chat once or twice was a treasure. When I came back I felt she had changed SO much:
- She's gained weight (17 lbs 4 ounces!), and her legs feel chubby!
- she loves to drink (more water than milk) and can hold her water bottle, I get scared how much she drinks.
- She was walking! (Though expected) Last weekend we went to the park, held her hand and she walked around for a long time.
- She is so opinionated now. She points to every different thing in her room and tries to tell me what it is. At the dinner table, she makes it very clear when she doesn't want something and sharply points to what she wants.
- She can stack blocks -- we have these big foam blocks. I would then hide on the other side, and she loves to knock the blocks over so they fall on me. She gets a big giggle out of it -- a few days ago she became really upset after dinner but I played this with her and got her to laugh
- She's gotten into reading, particularly her "Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Jesus Loves Me" books - sometimes by herself, and when I come into her play area she hands the Caterpillar book to me.
Perhaps I feel the change because I've been away and working with very malnourished, disabled kids in China. I remember S and I stressing about G's being at 0% weight curve and frying her egg yolks in butter, and we still stress about her not finishing her food sometimes and get tempted to force feed her. After seeing the kids in China, I assure you that G has nothing on them. G is so healthy, moving around, getting into books, just developing in every single way, and we are so fortunate for that. In China, the kid I worked with was 5 and could not even sit up, I would have been happy if she was able to track finger movement with her eyes -- a milestone here for one-month-old infants.
I realized while overseas that as parents many of us get stuck into the parenting rat race. We ask ourselves, why isn't our kid walking yet, look at our friend's! We get stressed if our infants don't roll over at 3 months, don't sit up by 6 months, don't clap by a year-old, and the development timetable is drilled into our heads by pediatricians, by parenting books, by other friends's kids (probably subconsciously). It took being away and working with disabled kids to shift my perspective. Kids here are blessed in ways that most people overseas cannot even imagine.
"Which of you by worrying can add a single day to their life?" --Matthew 6:27
