Week 51 postpartum thoughts and observations: 

• Sept 15: Lots of highlights this week:
• Firstly, can’t believe that this is the final week before she turns one year old!! I have a day or so left before she’s a one-year-old and not technically an infant anymore.. she’ll be considered a toddler! 😱
• This week, she was crawling and standing up near the railings and she decided for herself that she wanted to stick her legs between them and sit there. She did it on purpose as she would wiggle herself out and then do it again. Of course, this was all accompanied by a bright smile too. (The photo shows her sitting at the railings with her feet between the slates)
• This week, she can stand on her own unsupported for more than a few seconds. She will be taking her first steps very soon independently!!
• She crawls super fast now.
• She has grown taller. Her legs are longer. She definitely doesn’t “look” like a small baby anymore. She looks like a toddler/little girl.
• She can eat a small bowl of Cheerios with almond milk easily. I’ll add peanut butter to it so she gets exposed to some nuts. Also it has iron, etc.
• She is difficult to change on the changing table (because she keeps wanting to roll over and stand and diaper changing becomes impossible). Instead, we find that if we lay her flat on the bathroom counter, she doesn’t try to move around at all and we can change her easily.
• She likes to play with the stream of water from the faucet when she is in this position. 
• She is verbal about certain things now. Like when I’m feeding her and I’m not giving the next spoonful fast enough, she grunts or makes some noise to indicate she’s ready for the next bite.
• She also “yelled” when I was reaching for my phone to answer a message. She didn’t want me to. (But mama’s got to answer messages from prospective buyers on fb marketplace!!)
• I like it when bb sings or babbles musically to herself. It’s so adorable. Sometimes I don’t always catch these moments on video. They’re so fleeting. Like two weeks ago, she loved the “Not a Box” book and would bounce on her heels when I read it to her once, twice, and even three times. This week, she hands us the book to read but then once we start reading, she turns around to play with some other toy. I wish I had that intial excitement/reaction to the book recorded on video.
• Bb is so easily distracted..
• She loves climbing. She can independently climb up an adult bed and the storage box.
• On the weekend, we celebrated her first birthday early with DH’s immediate family members. Her aunt went all out and bought Minnie Mouse themed decorations. It was impressive and I’m so thankful for it. However, I’m glad me and DH are on the same page about infant birthday celebration decorations: they’re not necessary and a waste of money.. I mean fancy floating themed balloons and pink utensils and pink plates and themed napkins and wall decor and 1st vday cake holder and anything else are quite unnecessary. Bb won’t even remember this party (other than from seeing the photos). When she is older, I’ll gladly do what I can to fulfill her desires for a birthday celebration but still within reason. But when she is so young, something simple and low key will do. This is my own preference. I know other moms/dads might want to throw a huge party for their baby’s 1st bday, so to each their own.
• Her older cousin brought some felt toys to her face and she didn’t even flinch or react. She just sat there on the floor mat kind of stunned and didn’t react (she is like a homebody that terrorizes the house when she is at home but is a quiet nonreactive saint when we’re out and about in foreign places..) 
• Learned our lesson this week: never go out past the baby’s bedtime. Bb will be miserable and so will us. She sleeps by nightfall (currently around 8pm) so we have to be home by at least 7:45 to get her bath going and do the nighttime routine.
• Speaking of which, this week she hasn’t been allowing us to clean her teeth.  We’ve done nothing different yet she stuck out her tongue when I tried to brush her two bottom teeth. She didn’t let us brush for 2 or 3 days. Tonight was a success though.
• Her top teeth are coming in! Grandma said she can see the white parts in the top gums.
• She likes to stand up during bathtime now. It’s difficult to wash her, but it can be done..
• I’m only producing about 300ml daily of breastmilk now. I might be completely done by the end of 2021. Here’s hoping it will be done by then even though I cherish and will miss being able to provide milk for her very much.
• Her bedtime at 8pm, wakes up around midnight for a feed, then 4am, and 6am wakeup. Nap is one or two hours. This past week she has been sleeping in the stroller as she passes out from the motions and sights and sounds.
• Grandma brought her out for a walk and bb pointed to the swing set. Grandma took her out to swing on it. On another day, she didn’t and walked past the swings and bb cried because she wanted to go on them 😅.
• This past weekend, she also met her great grandmother for the very, very first time!!!!!! This is a huge deal to me as it’s a bucket list sort of item or milestone to have my daughter meet my 100 year old grandmother. My grandma is not very aware of what’s going on these days and I’m not even sure she recognizes me, but she was smiling when she saw the baby. 🙂 We of course took a “four generations” photo together. 🙂
• I noticed there have been more bees this year than ever before. My guess is that due to the COVID-19 lockdown last year with everyone staying at home and not going on nonessential trips (whether car or planes) that the air pollution has drastically decreased and thus Mother Earth has been able to replenish itself. Thus, more life propagated and essential insects like bees flourished. So, so glad to see. Bees are our friends and not to be squashed or eliminated. 
• Speaking of which, nowadays if I see a spider on the ceiling or wall at home where it’s not intruding my space, I let it go. Spiders are helpful insects and help us get rid of house pests. I used to always eliminate them, but now I let them run free. As a matter of fact, we have a resident in the basement bathroom. S/he’s set up camp in the door hinge area. 😂🕷
• Bb likes tearing apart toilet paper and eating it. 😓😬🤦🏻‍♀️ She knows she shouldn’t because when she has torn a piece off, she looks at me. I’ll let her play with the roll of toilet paper, no problem, but I go “No!” once she puts it into her mouth. And so sometimes I’m not fast enough and she ends up putting a small piece in her mouth (like the size of a dime). She actually chews it and eats it. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Oh, well. At least it’s not plastic or garbage. It’s “clean” paper fibres.
• She still likes pulling out all the diapers from the diaper basket and all her clothes down from the changing table shelf.
• I let her play with (safe) random household objects. This week, she learned how to press the button on a keychain flashlight. 😀
• She has more fun with these objects than “toys”. To her, anything is a toy!
• Snagged another deal on fb marketplace: five bottles of ready-to-feed formula. $13 for 5 bottles, making each one about $2.66 whereas the usual price is $2.88. It’s a minuscule amount, but it still adds up.
• Also have a pending purchase for a box of diapers for $20 to be picked up this upcoming weekend.
• Why buy from retail stores and have to pay full price and taxes when you can buy from a local human who doesn’t want the item anymore? It’s win-win for the buyer to save money and for the seller to get some cash back on items they don’t need anymore. I honestly can’t praise fb marketplace and those “buy nothing” groups enough. ^_^
• I had been procrastinating on a 5-hour transcript..partly due to my normal procrastinating ways but also because the audio quality is poor and it takes me 10 mins to even transcribe 5 mins and then I have no concentration left and need to take a break. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Also for the first time since returning to working that I felt, “Hey, wouldn’t it be nice to be a SAHM fully and not work? :D” Bb is growing up so fast particularly at this stage where she’s about to walk on her own soon that I don’t want to be burdened with work and have extra things to do on top of being tired, pumping, etc. But then once I was finally finished the transcript and submitted it, I was hungry for the money that comes with it. And personal fulfillment that comes from finishing and submitting another piece of history. 😀
• Now that we are in deep in September and kids have returned to school, etc, the sales on fb marketplace have picked up again. Yay! I can’t wait to finally finish selling all the clutter that we have; then I’ll be able to enjoy our space fully and be 110% present.
• She is clingy. As in I’ll be washing up and doing my morning washup routine and she’ll crawl towards me in the bathroom, stand up, and hold onto my legs. I’m always afraid she will fall and hit her head on the hard bathroom tiles.
• She always likes to seek me out and will crawl towards me (98% of the time).