A Father’s Diary

Until few days ago, baby tabi was a social butterfly. She loved strangers. She never feared going to people she had never seen before. It was a blessing for us parents as we could leave her with anyone without worrying about how she might behave.

But lately things have changed. She has developed an anxiety for strangers. This first happened when we visited a friend few days back. She cried when someone picked her up. She had never cried like that before. Throughout that evening tabi never went to that person, crying every time he tried to make contact with her.

Then it started happening more frequently. A crying session starts even when she is picked up by people more familiar to her. She just wants to be in mama’s or papa’s lap.

A brief research on internet revealed that this is normal for 8-month old babies. They suddenly develop stranger anxiety which goes away in few weeks. So I guess this phase is temporary.

A breakthrough just happened.

We left tabi at the baby sitters for 7 hours and nothing happened. She was fine.

We had to go to a desert excursion organized by my office and it seemed too risky to take tabi with us. So we decided to leave tabi at my wife’s friends place as she had been there many times and it worked well. As much as we were skeptical and nervous about it, we went ahead with the plan, because as they say, if you never try you will never know.

So when we picked up tabi in the night, tabi appeared to be perfectly normal. She didn’t cry upon seeing us nor created any scene. Our friends said she didn’t cry at all throughout the day. We were pleasantly surprised, needless to say.

This event has created many new possibilities for future. Let’s see.

Tabi turned 8 months few days ago.

She is doing most if not all of the things 8 month olds are supposed to do. She does her baby talk, which seems very random but repetitive. She laughs when someone makes funny faces in front of her, or tickles her. She still likes to see and meet new people, and never lets go an opportunity to let a stranger carry her. We have left her with the baby sitters a couple of more times and she has behaved perfectly well. She is very moody when it comes to eating her food. Sometimes she eats whatever is given to her as if its her favorite food and sometimes she refuses to eat anything for an entire day. She still loves ice-cream and never refuses that. She has learned to stand up by holding on to different objects. She loves to stand up and makes an effort to stand up whenever she can. She has also taken a few steps by holding on to whatever she is holding on to standing. I predict she will learn to walk in a couple of months, definitely before her 1st birthday.

It’s a delight to watch her grow and do new things. The anticipation of what she will do next is ineffable feeling.