Koala Keina

It seems that since birth, Keina's mama radar has been turned on. To date, apart from Naoki, no one else has been able to carry her for more than 5 min without having her cry to return to my arms. Even if I kept my hands on her as she was hugged by someone else, she starts crying ah-yee and turns back to look at me to make sure I was looking at her wailing. 

In a sense, it is very flattering to feel like I am her ONLY ONE in her universe. Equally, it is very taxing to feel like I am her ONLY ONE in her universe. Even at night, whilst sleeping, her mama radar is on. Despite my attempts to leave my scent behind in the form of my day clothes and PJs, she has never slept on for more than 1h without stirring to fussily cry ah-yee for me to soothe her back with the boob. Why the boob? Well, I suppose it is a strong sleep association for her but also, it seems like she is suspicious of the pats and cuddles and it is only the boob that she recognizes in the dark as her mama. 

At this point, though this means I have zero time to myself at home, I am glad to play the role of the bamboo tree (wait on second read this should be a eucalyptus tree! I'm mixing up koala and panda here- haha) to this lil koala. But I do wonder when she will grow out of it. I like to think that after her 9 months in my womb, she probably needs another 9 months out of the womb to adjust to life on her own. I read somewhere that babies still think they are attached to their mama despite not being inside them. 

But this is not to say that I am not trying to change things. I just prefer gentler (lazier) ways of doing it. For instance, we are on our 1st night of sleep circuit (I don't like the term sleep training). Nursed her on the bed at 7:20pm and it took her 8 tries of Pantley's boob removal and 20min to get her to stop nursing. Also have my wave sounds on to relax her. She was only really asleep at 8:45pm cos she woke about twice more after. 

Ah, the wave sounds remind me of my vacation days in Hawaii when Naoki and I were looking out from the high floors of our hotel, looking out at the ocean where the silvery moonbeans seemed to be creeping towards us. How I miss the romantic days but I wouldn't trade Keina's smiles for them. I can wait to recover them when she gets older- someday- when I can drop her at the grandparents or something- haha..