RianaBihari.com

Learning from observation is what babies do the best. Riana is 13 months old and likes to imitate everything we do. She likes to feed her mommy and daddy but little does she know that our taste buds are spoiled. Nonetheless, we’ll eat some puffs and cheerios with her. Sure enough, her touch does make it a little sweeter!

She’s seen mommy put toys in the toy box. She now likes to collect all her toys and put them in her toy box. It’s almost like a game for her. She also puts the lid back on While it’s a good thing that she likes putting things away, sometimes it can be really funny. Yesterday I took some clothes out of the basket in her closet to decide what to put on her. I had it nicely spread on the carpet. Without missing an opportunity, she quickly comes by and collects the clothes and puts them back in the basket. I couldn’t stop laughing at my funny little monster!

As much as it is fun to see her learn new things, sometimes it can be challenging. She likes to open every cabinet and every drawer in the house. Dear daddy put the safety locks in place. However, they didn’t last more than a few hours. Those locks were too secure for me to open the cabinets! No kidding.

Riana loves to walk and run around the house. She wants to climb over the safety gates and the crib. She likes to play hide and seek with her ma but sometimes she hides in very tight and confined spaces! It is time that I go and buy a first aid kit.

It is great to see her grow and learn new gestures. She waves good bye to me every morning on her way out to the daycare. What a great start to my day! She’ll give me a high five if I ask for one… Life is good… very good… Incredible…

My little menace… I love you darling… Hugs and Kisses…

Finally, at 13 months, Riana is teething. Riana has always showed signs of teething ever since she was 5 months old. She’s had several cheek rashes. She drooled a lot. All these months, Ashwin and I have been speculating that her first tooth might pop up any day. This time we are certain that she is indeed teething. We can finally see the top of her bottom two teeth and feel the sharp edges! She’s drooling buckets and doesn’t seem to get tired of chewing! She enjoys her crackers and fig bars! Yummm…

Despite being reassured by all the people around me, the doctors and the dentists, part of me always wondered if my dear daughter will ever get her first tooth. I was beginning to worry. I am sure there are several parents like me who wonder if their child will ever get their first tooth. The truth is “yes”. As long as the child is otherwise hitting all physical and mental developmental milestones, there is nothing to worry about. Doctors say that children can begin teething as late as 18 months of age. Riana is 13 months old today and she is doing well. I am very glad that so far, teething hasn’t been a painful experience for her. Knock on wood…

Cheers

Riana is learning to walk and she’s been making some great progress in the past couple of days. She’s been able to pull herself up to the standing position quite easily for a while now, and slowly began to stand without any support whatsoever. Once she got the stage of standing on her own, we began coaxing her to walk while her hands were held.

Since then she’s gone from taking a couple of steps with support to taking half a dozen steps all by herself. With each confidence boosting step she tries harder to go farther. With the quick progression she’s making, it’s probably only weeks before she’ll be nicely walking around.

In one way I’d like her to be able to walk as soon as possible as with her crawling around, she’s exposing her hands to all of the germs that lie on the floor and then promptly putting her fingers in her mouth when she’s tired or hungry. If she’s walking, that immediately takes away one possible avenue of germs getting into her.

Now if we can work on her not chewing on everything and anything, we’d be in great shape.

Cheers