On Saturday night, I slept in the air mattress we set up next to Kaia’s crib, with the front rail removed. While she fussed a couple times through the night, she mostly just needed the pacifier back in her mouth, as well as to get a brief back rub (she mostly prefers to sleep on her stomach at this stage). At around 2am, she fussed and needed to be comforted, so I pulled her off the crib mattress and onto my chest so that she could fall asleep on top of me, and eventually put her back on her back on the crib mattress. She slept soundly all the way until about 7am on Sunday morning. I opened my eyes at about 7:12am, and I found her sitting on her knees on her crib mattress, staring down at me, probably wondering when mommy would finally wake up.

Then last night, at Chris’s suggestion, I snuck out of the room after her first mini fuss, at around 12:30am. I went back to our own bed and slept there, checking on her twice through the night to make sure she was okay. She slept all by herself in her room until around 6am, when Chris woke up and saw her standing at the crib, waiting for us to get her. He went to retrieve her and brought her back to our bed, where she slept for another 45 minutes before waking up. It was like in the old days, before the Australia trip, when she happily slept in her crib but would occasionally want to join our bed in the early morning.

It took a while to get here, but I hope this keeps up. I want her to feel safe and comfortable in her crib, in her own room, without us there. I just hope no future trip disrupts this and causes her separation anxiety to come back again.

Kaia’s palate always seems to surprise pretty much everyone. Our nanny doubted me when I introduced different new, strongly flavored and spiced food to her way in the beginning of our solids journey. Other nannies tell our nanny that she is lying or exaggerating when she talks about what Kaia eats. Parents on both sides have questioned whether our approach has been smart or safe. Envious friends have suggested that not all parents would be comfortable implementing the same feeding approach. But the funny thing is, even though we have certainly been bold and seemingly fearless in introducing as many new flavors to her as possible, especially in the period leading up to her turning 1, Pookster also occasionally astonishes us, as well.

With some of the produce we picked up in Jackson Heights and Woodside yesterday, I made a fresh sour mango salad as part of our dinner this evening. I really didn’t have that many sour green mangoes, so we really just had enough mangoes for Chris and me as part of our meal. Because I pounded two Thai chilies into the garlic for the dressing and tasted it, it seemed a bit too spicy, so I decided not to give Kaia any.

Well, I probably “decided” that too soon because while feeding her dinner, she kept peering into my dinner bowl, wondering what I was eating, and probably also wondering why the hell she didn’t get the same thing. My baby gets massive FOMO when it comes to food. She whined until I gave her some, and then of course, she had to have 4-5 more spoonfuls until I had no more salad for myself left, except the parts with pounded chili residual.

Okay, well I guess I learned something: next time, I will not only buy more sour green mangoes, but I will also just give her the spicy food while I eat it. There’s really no need for me to be a tease with my own child, is there?

This morning as the “treat” at the end of her breakfast, I washed some blackberries and served them whole for Kaia. In general, for berries like blackberries or blueberries, it’s not advised to give them whole at her age…. unless the child has shown advanced chewing/biting abilities. So with both types of berries now, I just give them to her whole (occasionally, I flatten the blueberries slightly), and she’s comfortable and more than able to chew through them and swallow. Our nanny watched Kaia shove one whole blackberry into her mouth after the other and laughed.

“If you told me a year ago that I was going to allow a 15-month old to eat WHOLE blackberries under my watch, I would have told you that you were crazy!” our nanny laughed. “I’ll be honest, Yvonne. I have learned a lot about what babies are capable of with food because of you.”

I smiled. It’s always funny when your nanny relents that she was wrong, and you were right. I’d say that with 8+ months of practice with chewing and biting, it’s partly just practice that led Kaia to being the good eater she is. But the other part of it could also just be luck. Maybe if another kid had her same environment and conditions, perhaps they wouldn’t be as mature as Kaia is with food. Who knows?

“Maybe you will do this same form of baby-led weaning for your next nanny kid at your next job,” I said to her, winking.

She shook her head. “No, no… I don’t think so. I will stick with what I am comfortable with!!”

When a baby body care box that included a snot sucker (Nose Frida) was gifted to us from our registry, I figured that this manual snot sucking contraption would come in most handy if and when Kaia would fall ill. What I didn’t realize is that snot sucking would need to be a nearly daily task that I’d have to do for Kaia. And it would be especially hideous when Kaia would actually be congested.

Since Saturday, Kaia has had a little cold. She’s been stuffy, runny, and having endless snot stuck in her system. On the bright side, she’s still maintained good spirits and has still eaten well, so we haven’t been too worried. But I have had to increase snot sucker usage from once a day before bed to 3-4 times a day. On the worst night, I had to wake up three times in the middle of the night to clear her system out.

Today, I cleared her out before breakfast and again before lunch. Both times, it took longer than I would have preferred, which means Kaia was angry and trying to break free of our nanny holding her down in place, and I was getting out of breath and tired. And when you looked at the results of the snot sucker post suck, you’d really have to wonder… how can this much snot and nasal yuckiness come out of such a tiny human?

In the last week, Kaia’s new words have just exploded. I was already having a hard time keeping track of all the words, but just in the last week, it’s gotten a bit out of control in a good way.

I keep a cup of water for myself by my bedside table each night, and I’ve also kept Kaia’s water cup on the same stand. Yesterday, she started charging toward the table to grab my phone, and I called out, “Pooks, watch out!” She looked at me and giggled, responding, “Watch out!”

She’s said, “oh no,” and “no, no, no!” more times than I can count. She points at her pacifier and yells out “paci!” She goes into her sock drawer, pulling all the socks out, yelling “socks!” over and over again. She pointed at my bowl of dinner and repeated “rice” many times. She knows what beets are and how to say them. She even said “mian,” Chinese for “noodles” multiple times, and said “xi shou,” Chinese for washing hands, when I brought her to the sink to wash up. When she occasionally tries to throw food off her tray and our nanny wags her finger at her to admonish her, Kaia giggles and yells back, “oh, no, no, no, no!” She says “e i e i o” after the “Old McDonald Had a Farm” song, almost at the right pitch. And she also sings the first part of the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” song — “Up above (the world so high).” When we practice walking together, and I say “up, up, up!” she repeats after me. She also loves to yell, “go!” And of course, she is never shy about asking for “more?” when it comes to her very favorite foods.

My chatty baby is learning so much and is a human sponge. I can’t even properly express in words how proud and happy it makes me. Sometimes, I look at her face, and I can’t believe how freaking lucky I got.