Kaiya’s First Year: Week 18

We all survived 36 hours onboard an Indian train! While we weren’t exactly sitting with chickens and goats in the general class seats, doing anything for 36 hours with 3 kids can be a challenge. We played lots of card games, ate too much train food, and relished the moments when the train would stop just long enough for us to hop out and stretch our legs. We managed to traverse nearly the entire length of this giant country, stripping down along the way the further south we got. We boarded with sweaters and blankets in Delhi and by the time we disembarked in Calicut, we were down to tank tops and flip flops. Kaiya was sound asleep by the time we arrived in Calicut, and dressed in her full-length onsie pj’s was sweating by the time we arrived at the hotel 5 minutes later. I remember the first time I saw a baby sweat–it was on a tro-tro in Ghana and I was shocked to see beads of sweat covering an infant’s forehead. I guess living in North America we don’t really let our babies get hot enough that they’d actually sweat. But in places like Ghana and Kerala where the average temperature year round is scorching, there’s simply no avoiding it. So yet another thing to add to Kaiya’s list of firsts, sweat!

She had developed an intense interest in food this week and its getting increasingly difficult to distract her during our meals. She’s begun grabbing for food and pulling it towards her mouth and she opens her mouth wide if the person holding her is drinking something as if to say “Hey, I want some!”. I’ve always assumed that I would wait until 6 months to start feeding my baby solid foods, but with how badly she wants it, I think it will be tough to hold off much longer. So once we get back to Firozabad, we may offer her some home-cooked meals and see what she thinks. But I don’t want her first taste of food to be from a restaurant of unknown cleanliness and risk her getting sick…although she’s managed to take 2 big gulps of bath water since we’ve been here and come through it unscathed, so maybe she’s got my intestines of steel!

Kaiya had a nasty case of cradle cap crop up this week too…ok, so that might be a slight exaggeration. I’m not sure how bad it really was since I have nothing to compare it to. But the top of her head was scaley and yellow, so yes, it was nasty. Anyways, Vibhu’s mom told us that if we didn’t do something about it, namely give her a daily scalp massage with oil to make it go away, that it could get infected and become much worse. So that very afternoon I massaged “Wonder Balm” onto her scalp. Made by a local Victoria company, I first got hooked on the products created by Brody Chicks when we tried their line of disposable diapers. 100% biodegradable, locally made, and massively absorbant, we use these diapers at night and have never had leaks. I oringanlly picked up their Wonder Balm as a tonic for a bit of redness that had developed on Kaiya’s bum, but have since used it to combat dry skin and a rash on her chin from excessive drooling. I figured if it could cure everything else we’ve used it for, why not this. Sure enough, this “non petroleum jelly” made from natural oils, waxes, and vitamin E did the trick and the cradle cap was gone within a few hours!

We’ve got lots of fun activities planned for next week, so stay tuned for Kaiya’s adventures at the beach in Goa and trekking in Kerala!