More Months and Much More Eris

Eris has now been with us for over seven months. She continues to be a pretty happy baby, and she has started to develop different aspects of her personality. And so much has happened in a few short months.

First off, Eris’ teeth are erupting left and right. Last I checked, she had six teeth, and I’d be surprised if two more were not on the way. She seems to enjoy the sound the make when you grid them together, but other than that, they have mostly caused discomfort so far. We started solids shortly before her six month birthday, because she was so eager to participate at the table. However, Eris still uses her teeth very little for eating. She instead swirls the food around in her mouth for a while. If it doesn’t dissolve, she usually spits it out. We’re doing baby-led weaning again, so she mostly has finger foods from our table. But she has quite firm preferences for what she likes. So far, banana, mango, plain yoghurt and oatmeal are on the no-list. Olive and apple have been accepted, and any kind of bread product is desirable. And she absolutely adores drinking water. Especially from Storm’s bottle. She likes cookies, too, unsurprisingly. The holidays offered plenty of opportunities to try those. But anyway, all that bread seems to cause problems for her digestion, so we’re working on finding other things that she will enjoy.

Sleep has been pretty much like I expected it to be. Eris goes to bed around 7.30pm, nurses to sleep, and then sleeps a longish stretch at the beginning of the night. Most nights. Some nights, she wakes, crying, every hour until midnight or so. Often I need to rock her back to sleep. Eris likes to be rocked, but it makes me tired because I need to fully wake up to do it, and then it’s harder to get back to sleep after. And then I get less sleep overall. So I’m less fond of it. I much prefer to nurse her back to sleep, and that works most of the time. When she is tired, or on the verge of waking up, Eris always rubs her eyes. Intensely. It’s unfortunate, because her pacifier always falls out of her mouth when she does it. And that makes her cry if she’s asleep. After weeks of trying, Eris finally accepted a pacifier. It’s both a blessing and a curse, as we knew it would be. It makes it easier for everyone else to be able to calm Eris, which is good. And it makes her wake up at night when it falls out of her mouth, which is bad.

As for naps, Eris takes frequent, short naps. She has an intense case of FOMO, so if there is a noise, and especially if that noise sounds like her older brother squealing in delight, then she wakes up. Depending on the excitement-level of the thing that caused the noise, she may or may not go back to sleep. In the morning, she mostly does. In the afternoon, she generally does not. But she’ll fall asleep when she’s tired, right???

Right now, falling asleep is often disrupted by Eris’ strong desire to practice moving. She is an expert roller by now, she’s able to sit up unassisted most of the time, and she’s adept at the baby-backwards slide. Unfortunately, the backwards slide rarely gets you to your goal, and that is frustrating. As Eris frequently lets us know. So, it is perhaps no wonder that she wants to practice other types of movement at every opportunity. She does a mean upward dog and has done so for a couple of weeks now – lifting her entire upper body off the floor, from the knees, and just this week, she managed to bend at the knees and lift up her bum, so she’s standing on all fours. Her Opa is convinced she’ll be crawling shortly. I think that would be great. Then she could finally get to all of Storm’s toys that, like other three year olds, he is really wanting to share. Especially with little baby hands that just want to see how much noise things can make when you bang them on the floor.

Eris also enjoys babbling. I think we’ve covered all the expected consonant sounds by now, baba, wawa, dada, nana. She also produces mehmehmeh, but only when she’s angry or frustrated with you. This often happens in conjunction with getting dressed. Eris is not a fan. She especially loathes having her jacket put on, though it’s a tie between whether she despises she sleeves or the zipper the most. Mehmehmeh. It’s weird, though, because she absolutely adores being outside. I think riding in the stroller is her favorite thing. Observing the trees, and the wind and the people. Humming when we’re crossing a delicious stretch of cobble stones. Slipping into sleep, cocooned in blankets and her sleeping bag.

Our little pandemic baby feels best in the family circle. When out and about, she’s happy to smile at people who want to greet her, but only after she’s checked that someone familiar is in sight and that they seem to think it’s ok. Otherwise, she cries. She also doesn’t let unfamiliar people hold her. Her cute little face crumbles the moment she realizes what’s about to happen. So we don’t really do that until they’ve become familiar. Sometimes, she lets no one hold her but me. Luckily, I’m at home all the time… I can’t count the meetings I have participated in with Eris in the carrier or on my lap. This year has been special. In bad ways and good.

To us as to many others, this year has passed so slowly and so quickly all at the same time. 2020 is almost over, and Eris is almost 8 months old. Here’s hoping for a happy new year.

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