how is percy travelling? attempt 2

sorry 'bout the title with no entry. this will be addressed in "3rd impressions expanded"

so, given this blog is about percy i haven't actually said a lot about her. how is she travelling? i don't know, about average i guess. i've got nothing to compare her to. no-one has stopped me in the street wildly gesticulating and screaming "what is wrong with your baby!" so i suppose there's nothing terribly obvious. not that i'd understand the russian anyways.

we did have a three month check-up with a pediatrician at the american medical centre a few weeks back. (same place that took my toe nail- which is healing nicely now, thanx for your messages and concern.) he pronounced himself happy. he looked in her eyes, her ears, her mouth, he manipulated her hips, he pulled her to sitting by her arms, he rolled her on her stomach, he looked at her hands and feet, he watched her interact with me and the nurse and her fascination with her surroundings. i can't think what else he might have done.
she weighed in at 6 kilos and measured 60cms long. i forget her head circumference, will have to check her blue book. she'll probably have added to these statistics over the last three weeks.
i asked about her vomitting after nearly every feed, he replied this is normal and fine, so long as it is not excessive and she is still gaining weight and healthy. well i suppose it's not excessive- i haven't exactly tried to catch it or mop it off the floor and measure it.
she holds her head up very well and has great neck muscles. i attribute that to all the time spent in the hug-a-bug or baby bjorn slings as she needs to hold her head up to see different views. we've not yet bought a pram or stroller so any trip out is in a sling. she doesn't actually get a lot of time on her stomach. she's not very keen but we are working up from 15 seconds to a few minutes each day.
she has wet nappies throughout the day and at least one pooey one per day. i've stopped changing her at the midnite or early morning feeds as this nappy is typically dry and clean.

that's her statistic report card.

on the "ooo, isn't that gorgeous!" and "aren't you a clever percy-wercy?" scale she has changed so much from her first weeks. she rolls readily to her right side and back to her back. she'll roll with encouragement to her left and then rolls back. she can grasp most objects given to her- rattles, soft balls, toys, our hands, books, cloths, dummies, $100 notes... no just kidding on the last one. i honestly don't have a $100 note to test that with. 100 hryvnia (pronounced greev-na) i do have, i'll wait 'til she wakes up.
she was engrossed with my water bottle and really took to sucking the condensation off the outside. perhaps i shouldn't have let her- oh well, stregthen her immune system. i think she was interested in the different temperature. she hasn't experienced cold, wet things before. of course wet nappies need to be discounted from that equation. i imagine they stay warm for a long while too.
her ready smiles and giggles dry up when you point a camera at her. maybe she's actually from a remote hill tribe and is concerned i'm stealing a portion of her soul everytime i take a photograph of her. baby, stop worrying! given the number of photos i've taken you are now soul-less; there's nothing left to worry about. i've let her handle the camera but she shows very little interest in it once it's within reach. her giggles and laugh are heart melting. she's very quick to smile and almost looks shy and coy sometimes when she does as she tucks in her chin and turns her head away a little. i'm reminded of scarlett o'hara. she smiles with her whole face and body, it's tear-jerking!

she feeds well. we have been demand feeding up to this past weekend. this usually meant around the 3 hour mark. sometimes 2, sometimes 4 and sometimes when we were particularly lucky 5 hours thru the nite. on sunday we decided we'd try to set a bit of a routine. just so there is more predictability in our lives and hopefully so percy learns to sleep longer periods. this is the fourth day of the routine and it seems to be working relatively well. i'm not demanding that everything happens at a set time to the minute but within 15 minutes would be good. i'll let you know what success we have....

the only thing that concerns me about her is her addiction to her dummy (pacifier if anyone reading is a yank.) we did not give her a dummy for the first 4 weeks of her life. partly because i was opposed to them and partly because she did not take it on the first offer so we stopped. unfortunately percy had digestion issues and sucking on something after her feed helped her to keep food down and eased the pain. this initially meant our little fingers had the shortest nails you've ever seen and ended up quite prune-y by days end. (this factor wasn't really a concern.) more seriously what it meant was that one of us was literally attached to her for hours at a stretch. it's just not practical. so we tried a dummy again, and she accepted it.
now she needs it to help calm or soothe her at any time. the only time i can get her to sleep without it is in the middle of the nite when she feeds virtually asleep and lies down again without being disturbed. then she seems to have forgotten her need. however if she wakes up more seriously then she misses it and cries for us to replace it in her mouth. you can imagine what a bad nite for us is. i have read you can train a baby to replace the dummy herself- when they're about 8 months old. we've got a lot of lost sleep between now and 8 months.
i've tried to be firm and hardened my heart and wean her cold turkey. after 20 minutes of plaintive screaming i couldn't take it any more. pop! goes the dummy!
i have purchased an incredibly soft teddy bear, now named 'raffles', to become what the experts call a 'lovey.' something for her to have to help her soothe herself. it ain't a dummy replacement. yet. i'm hopeful. we'll persist. if anyone has tips on banishing the dummy without hours of tantrums i'd be pleased to hear from you.

all up i'm going to take reassurance that she looks normal to me, has a healthy set of lungs, enjoys playing with all manner of things, likes being bathed- if the temperature is right!, has all the requisite appendages in all the typical places and doesn't elicit screams on the street.