Your tommy pain days are behind us. You didn’t have the problem in the past several weeks.

But, it was funny, you were shouting and folding your legs into and under your tummy, we gave you a teaspoon of gripe water, and you got relieved and calm in a minute.

Your doctor said, you might like the taste. Gripe water cannot effect so quickly. But well, I do think gripe water did some magic with you.

It is alcohol-free, btw.

It is said that gripe water doesn’t work for all babies, but just for some. but hey, it did work for you.

I believe I said before, but your doctor prescribed BioGaia. BioGaia had an accumulative impact. But for gripe water, it was immediate.

If we put our finger in your mouth, and you start sucking it, you are definitely hungry.

If we want to put you into sleep, and you cry outloud, you are either very sleepy, or not sleepy. So, if we put you in your activity saucer (or take you out of the house, at the door) and you start laughing and goggling, you are not sleepy. If you keep on shouting and yelling or nagging, you are sleepy.

If you fold your legs in your tommy and cry outloud, it is your tommy! Thanks god now all tommy pain is behind us.

and, you might be cold or warm, you might be bored, or, you might react to a new place or a stranger new person. You rarely cry if you poo or pee!

If you have burp, and we try to feed you, you shout outloud!

If you want to turn (from your back to your tommy) and we do not let you, you shout.

Your father says, babies do not understand what is wrong when they are tired, exhausted and sleepy. They start shouting and screaming, and get uneasy when they are sleepy. They need help to go to sleep.

Interestingly, you can crawl when you are on a bed, and about to sleep!

This keeps you from going to sleep! It seems that whenever babies learn a skill, they are so excited, they can’t sleep.

Your crawling skill is not mature yet.

You have always slept really well through the night. We feed you every four hours after you sleep, without waking you.

For the first 15 weeks or so, we changed your diaper, and wiped you in your sleep too. But starting a couple of weeks ago, we stoped changing you during the night. We use 12-hours diapers. Change you at around 11 p.m. (in your sleep), then again at around 8 or 9 in the morning.

Yet, if you poo, we always wash you with water and change you immediately, regardless of the time of the day.

Putting you to sleep is recently a bit of a challenge, but after you sleep, you sleep really well.

It is almost a month or longer since your poop started smelling awful. For a month or longer you used to poop once a day, always in the morning.

For a couple of weeks now, you poop every 28 to 48 hours.

We all get excited and ecstatic when you poop. Your dad loves to wash you after you pee or poo! We all adore you.

An italian young guy, exactly one year older than you kissed you a couple of days ago!

Apparently, you didn’t like it. Your granny who was holding you at the time, says you cried outloud. But then Luka, caressed your legs and you liked it. You smiled. This was all according to your grandma who took you unto the street for a change and to entertain you.

Your dad is really bad in learning lyrics. He knows one now and that is “my beautiful doll” a very famous babies (mostly girls) iranian nursery rhythms. He sings it to you again and again until you fall asleep.

I keep on reading many different iranian songs (including by Farhad Mehrad, Mansoor Tehrani, Haydeh, Sattar, Marzyeh, Vigen and many more) to you. I have learnt some English nursery rhymes as well, and I read them to you.

I even read some revolutionary songs for you. I just want you to learn our history and get the feeling.

Our family never liked the Islamic revolution. Your father’s family had a totally different idea. Anyways, I like you to be familiar with all those revolutionary songs.

For the “my beautiful doll”, I have created a lyrics of my own. The original lyrics says “my beautiful doll, open your eyes, when night falls, go back to sleep again, now come play with me, play balls or skip ropes with me”.

I replaced it with:

“my beautiful doll (or Deeba kouchoulou) close your eyes, when it is morning again, smile at the world, now let’s go sleep calmly together, you will wake up again, you almond blossom”.

We started solid foods when you were 4 months and a week.

You like the taste, because you are eager to keep the spoon in your mouth. But hey, you still do not know what to do with food when it is in your mouth. You do not know how to swallow. It explains why you have been drooling for weeks now. You have no idea what to do with your saliva; you spit it out!

Neda said that we needed to keep on practicing, and that is what we are planning to do.

When you were 3 months and half, I already started smashing grapes, and giving you 5 drops of grape juice twice daily in a spoon. (baby spoons; metal steel spoons may hurt your gums)

Now I give you 2 or 3 teaspoons of grape (or apple) juice daily (3 grape berries, or one small piece of apple), mixed with the drops prescribed by the doctor (BioGaia, started when you were 3 weeks, because of your tummy pain).

I mix your vitamin D (D drops; 1 ml daily) with a very tiny bit of fruit yogurt, which makes 2 teaspoons of vitamin D/yogurt, and give it to you again with spoons.

You do a better job with liquids than with cereals.

You started with rice cereal, and I will keep you on it to the end of this week. Then I will give you something else.

You are the cutest creature when you make a mess. You insist on keeping the spoon with your tiny hands. Your hands get dirty with cereal, then you touch your face, your hair and your toys and…we have to wash them all. I learnt my lesson; I keep a napkin handy, don’t let you touch the food, and if you do, I clean your tiny hand and fingers immediately.

You went sleepless again last night.

You have learnt to move in your playpin, I am not sure how you manage to do it. It seems that you lift your bum, then push yourself ahead, which doesn’t take you that much ahead but a bit to the side. You keep on moving like this, so, you rotate by 360 degrees or you get trapped in the corner or on the top of your playpin, and cannot go any further. At this point you wake up and cry!

This happened at least four times last night. Putting you back to sleep was a bit of a challenge.

You are growing, and you are adorable.

We were zombies in the morning. Your grandmother was nice enough to take care of you in the morning so that we can get a bit of a sleep.