All of a sudden, we have a 9 month old! Baby T. has officially been alive as long as I was pregnant with her. It seems like a milestone, doesn't it? More than anything, I can't believe how quickly she's growing.

Here are some recent observations:

• Baby T. can sit up unsupported. It seems like she wasn't motivated to sit up before but I think once she realized that sitting up means more solid foods, she was all in. Now it's no big deal.
• Also not a big deal is crawling. One day Baby T. was playing on the floor and decided to crawl to me. It was so exciting! And also terrifying. She's mobile!! No more helpless baby just sleeping all day. 
• So far Baby T. has eaten a variety of foods including: rice, oatmeal, poi, blueberries, tofu, broccoli, bananas, butternut squash, mixed veggies, and Okinawan sweet potatoes. She doesn't seem to have discerning taste, which is my dream. I'm a picky eater and a pain in the butt so I hoped that my child would eat whatevs like her father. 
• Baby T. got to meet her great-grandmother last month. We drove all the way out to Lanikai to visit Great-Grandma K. (GGK) Though Baby T. cried and cried most of the time, she seemed to get more comfortable with the whole situation as we were leaving.
• Then, a few weeks later, GGK came over to visit and Baby T. only cried for like 10 mins before she let GGK hold her. That's progress!
• In addition to clapping on command, Baby T. can also wave when we ask her to. It's so pure and sweet when she sees me or Dada, smiles, and waves or claps! That's love!
• Baby T. has been pulling out the bows we put in her hair to keep it out of her face. After she rips off her bow, she'll wave it at us then either try to eat it or throw it on the ground. Because of this, we've been putting her hair up in a palm tree using orthodontic rubber bands. She tries to rip those out but has a harder time.
• Whenever her toy plays music, she dances to it. And when she watches videos, she basically head bangs, jumping up and down with one arm in the air. 
• Baby T.'s teeth are starting to come in. You can see the two bottom front teeth emerging from her gums. And when she gnaws on my finger, I can feel just a hint of her sharp chompers.
• She obsessed with pulling herself up using anything she can get her hands on. Omg will she start walking soon??
• Baby T. weighs in at 16.7 lbs! That's actually small for her age but she feels so heavy to me. 

And that concludes month nine so far. It's so rewarding and fun to see Baby T. grow. 
 

Last Friday, I was eating dinner at home when my stomach started churning. I went to the bathroom and stayed in the bathroom the entire evening. Stuff came out from the top and bottom. It was a bad case of food poisoning it seemed. The only thing I ate that no one else had was fried noodles for lunch and steamed asparagus during dinner. It was bad, but I'd had food poisoning before so it wasn't scary.

The next day when I woke up, I felt 100% better to my relief. I ate the rest of the fried noodles thinking that maybe it had been the asparagus that was bad and followed that poor decision with a cookie, some chips, and some Easter jelly beans. I'm always eating junk food even though every time I do, I tell myself it's the last time. 

About 30 minutes later, my stomach started hurting. It didn't feel like the food poisoning I felt the night before. My stomach was actually cramping and pulsating in pain. A year ago, when I was pregnant, I had bad stomach cramps and thought something was wrong with the baby. We rushed to my OBGYN and it turns out. . .I was constipated. Omg so embarrassing!! So I figured that I was just constipated again.

I tried to rest but I was in so much pain I started to cry. My husband was like okay, we're going to the ER. I begged him not to make me go since I was probably just constipated and they'd tell me, "take some doo doo medicine." My husband reasoned, "What if it's not constipation?" It was a good point so we left Baby T. with my best friend and her mom and went off the to the ER.

I'll spare you the details of five hours of tears, tests, and high blood pressure in the Pali Momi emergency room. In the end, its turns out I had stomach inflammation! I didn't even know what that was. 

Apparently, the food poisoning irritated my stomach and the bad foods I ate the next day exasperated the irritation. Also, when I mentioned that I got the COVID Johnson & Johnson vaccine a week and a half before, one of the nurses said that the vaccine is known to cause inflammation. So that could also have been a factor. But who knows!

The week following my ER visit, I was weak and had no appetite. Through I was still able to nurse Baby T., I was terrified that eating normal food would cause stomach pains again. I ate soup, toast, and other low fat/bland foods. 

It's been a little over a week since I was in the ER and I'm finally feeling normal again. I'm doing my best to avoid fatty (aka delicious), oily, salty foods. Whenever I'm tempted to go wild, I remember how miserable I was in the ER, how much I missed Baby T. and how guilty I felt for having to leave her, and how worried I made my husband and best friend.

Eating healthy is a struggle but I know it's worth it for my health, happiness, and baby.