I feel so bad that we only just realized Veronique has turned four months on the day when a neighbor asked us how old she was. On top of that, we forgot to take her "monthly" photo on the playmat that we religiously did with Jack.
She is still growing like a champion. Yesterday I weighed her on the baby scale and she's already at a solid 7.25kg with her outfit and diaper. I remember those days when I was nervously weighing Jack-Jack to see if he's taking in enough milk so that the doctor would no longer consider him to be a "failure to thrive" child, ah, those dark days of motherhood. Now with Veronique I have fully accepted my role as the on-demand cow and take her everywhere I go.
She's a bit like her brother in the sense that she's not a great sleeper at night. She was quite good during those confinement months, and almost sleeping through with the occasional 5-hour stretches and I only had to get up once or twice. Now getting up twice to three times is considered a good night in my books, and on those regular nights... I lost count. But at least co-sleeping allowed me to still function with reasonable clarity and energy during the day, but to do that comfortably I had to send mic to sleep with Jack-Jack so I can have some more wiggle room on our bed. So there is a price to pay, but I always say to myself and mic that this is just a phase, before you know it she will be out of our bed and probably won't even answer when we call her, so I am just trying to enjoy those morning cuddles when it's just me and her, on the bed when the whole house is still quiet. It's actually a really special moment for me. With two kids in a house I rarely have a quiet moment like this to enjoy her this way, so even if I am sleepy-eyed and wish that I could lay for another hour, I get up, and I kiss and hug and smile back at her. She's a dutiful little alarm clock waking me up almost at 6AM every single morning kicking and bouncing her head on me vigorously to make sure I get up to play with her, and gives me her most adorable smile when I kiss her. She's much more social of a child than Jack-Jack, smiling a lot and loves to examine faces and people.
Her skin condition has finally improved a bit, after trying out endless bottles of lotion, oil and bath gels. And while the thighs are still chunky, she's leaned and lengthened a lot and looking more and more like a pretty little girl, easing her mother's vanity anxiety that her daughter is not beautiful enough. Physically she is very strong, long been able to hold her neck straight with ease, now when you pull her hand she can also sit up and stand with support.
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Jack-Jack is going through an explosive stage of development on the language side. He's all of a sudden over the last two weeks started to talk a lot, putting together full sentences, having a real conversation, and switch with ease between Chinese and English depending on the audience. He can also recount what happened during the day with you (sometimes with some imagination, too). Just yesterday he went to the park with our helper and he told me "看到兩個crane truck" on the way home, and "腳痛痛，要塗藥藥，因為有碰到火，在Fireboat" (which is of course imaginary)
With both sets of grandparents in town for Veronique's baptism, he was a little Mandarin chatter with my dad and switches to English speaking to mic's parents and mic's sister. So interesting to watch.
Just yesterday, he started to ask the "what" and "why"s on just about everything he sees. I can just see those curiosity firing like little electric grids inside his head. So now we have explain to him when we are taking a lift, where does it go to, what happens after we get out of the lift, and the surroundings.
One more thing to note was my dad's time spent with him two weeks a go has certainly left his mark. Just last night I was reading him books before his bed time, and afterwards told him I wanted to hug and kiss him. This was our conversation:
"媽咪好想抱抱親親你“
“不要“
“為什麼不要？這樣媽咪好傷心耶“
“........" (silence)
"你是媽咪的小寶貝耶！我好想抱抱你、親親你喔“
“不是“
“？“
“ Jack-Jack 是外公的小寶貝“
媽咪無言中
