Leah is starting to develop preferences for things. At the top of this list is a strong preference for BEING HELD BY MOMMY. I am OK with this just as much as I am not OK with it.
Her desire to be near me is an excellent confidence builder. That she wants to tell me gurgle-stories while she sits in my lap, or that she looks at me as though I created the universe itself, is a whole new kind of awesome. However, there are other people in this world who want to hold her: Grandparents. Great-grandparents. My co-workers. Aunts and uncles. Mommy and Daddy's friends. Unassuming strangers. And all of these people stand about a 90 percent chance of being screamed at because, apparently, my daughter is not the kind of baby who wants to be passed around so she can show off how adorable and well-behaved she is. If you have managed to hold Leah for more than five minutes in the last two weeks and have her not start possessed-dolphin screeching at you, congratulations. Your name is on a very elite list. You must have magical powers or something. Not even her grandfather could manage this feat.
Fortunately, she will also sometimes stand to be entertained by non-Humanoid neglect-o-matics. The swing. The bouncy chair. This glow-worm seahorse toy that I stand about a 1 in 4 chance of not remembering how to turn on. She likes musical things over other toys. If the TV is on, she prefers sports or game shows to anything with an actual plot (to be fair, this is likely inherited behavior. For generations, my family has turned these things on so that if we zonk out in the middle, we can wake up and still know what happened just by looking at the score.) She likes to stare out the window, though what exactly she's looking at, I can't say. She also spends a fair amount of time staring at the upper corner of our china cabinet.
She will engage inanimate objects in conversation from time to time, which is equal parts amusing and disturbing. Not every 8-week-old will spend 20 minutes talking to a stuffed leaf. Some grown-ups could, but because I do not want to pay a fortune in psychiatric bills, I'm hoping she eventually starts to engage things that have, you know, eyes.
Other things Leah likes:
Being naked
Being placed in her car seat and bashed against Mommy's leg (Mommy has bruises and truly wishes this wasn't a thing)
I have begun to suspect that we are raising a very strange child.
Lucky for her, she fits right in at home.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Gimme Gimme Gimme
This has been a productive week for Leah.
To start with, she discovered that she can grasp rhings. You'll notice I said "grasp" and not "grab". She cannot reach out and possess things (even if they are attached to her body.) She can, however, express a strong desire to have something as her very own forever if it is placed in her hand or mouth. If she really wants it, getting it back becomes not unlike trying to take a tennis ball from a very rambunctious puppy. She also cannot reason that some things are not an extension of herself. Therefore if she has something in her hand, she can fling it about until her motor skills give out and she opens her palm and drops it. Then she cries. Or if she has something in her mouth that is attached to other things (like, say, my nipple, which is attached to my body) and she wants to turn her head and the thing will not go and also, Mommy gets mad and takes the thing away, she also cries. So there's some work to be done on that front yet, clearly.
Lucky for us, she has also started to make sounds that are not crying. This is a refreshing change of pace as it is now possible to (sort of) tell when she is enjoying something. Furthermore, she has made herself a source of entertainment in that she will sometimes pipe up in conversation with a little squeal or grunt at extremely convenient times, so that it almost sounds like she's voicing an opinion. Sometimes, when she is in an extremely good mood, this means we can have a conversation:
Me: Hi Leah! How are you today? Are you a happy girl today? Are you Mommy's happy girl today?
Leah: Aaaaahphhht!
Me: How do you feel about a new shirt?
Leah: Guh.
Me: Oh, my goodness. Look at that dirty diaper. That is such a big poopy for such a little girl. Yes it is. Yes it is.
Leah: ...*blank stare*
Of course, most of the time I just get the *blank stare* part of that, but I like to think that maybe, just maybe, that stare is not as blank as it looks. That maybe her little brain is cyphering on what I have just said.
Also, she smiles now! There really isn't any rhyme or reason to those smiles, though. Like the happy-grunty-not crying sounds, they are just there. Sometimes they are timed very conveniently so as to make Mommy or Daddy (or Grandma, who I think delights in the whole "smile" thing even more than we do) think we've done something to make her happy.
Then five seconds later she fixates her eyes on the china hutch for no reason, or fills her diaper, or starts to cry. After some observation, I've decided that her smiles are not at all an indication of emotion. They are an indication that she is about to change something about what she's doing, and I may or may not enjoy it. Each Leah Smile is like reaching into the Mystery Bag of Life.
And then there's the biggie. A couple of days ago, I was on the floor with Leah, doing the all-important "tummy time." Tummy time is one of those obligatory parent-things that we have to do even if the baby screams her little head off, because otherwise she will never develop stomach muscles and will be a helpless, back-laying nobody for the rest of her life. If you want to get anywhere in life, you need abs as a child. And so we do tummy time, which amounts to me putting her face-down on a blanket and letting her push and squirm and move around until she gets totally frustrated, at which point I will pick her up and assure her that the world did not disappear into red-and-white checker design. But I digress. We were doing the tummy time thing, and she got her little arms under her squirmy body, hoisted herself half an inch off the ground in a pseudo push-up position and then, right before my eyes, pushed herself over onto her side and then onto her back.
It was the most amazing thing I have seen in a very long time.
It also made me realize that, whether we are ready for it or not, Leah is now slightly mobile. Very soon, she will be able to roll the other way, too, and then she will be even more mobile. And then she will learn to crawl, and we are completely fucked and should probably re-take that Infant CPR class, because she is most definitely going to eventually put something in her mouth that she finds on the floor, because it's not like we're the best housekeepers in the world.
But I think we're safe for a little longer, as right now she is very much like a turtle. (I can no longer justifiably call her a potato. Potatoes, awesome as they are, are not capable of self-propulsion. If you want them to roll, they must be pushed.) Turtles, however, occasionally flip themselves over onto their backs for no discernible reason and get stuck there and can only flail their little legs in the air until someone comes along to help. That's exactly what Leah looks like right now.
To start with, she discovered that she can grasp rhings. You'll notice I said "grasp" and not "grab". She cannot reach out and possess things (even if they are attached to her body.) She can, however, express a strong desire to have something as her very own forever if it is placed in her hand or mouth. If she really wants it, getting it back becomes not unlike trying to take a tennis ball from a very rambunctious puppy. She also cannot reason that some things are not an extension of herself. Therefore if she has something in her hand, she can fling it about until her motor skills give out and she opens her palm and drops it. Then she cries. Or if she has something in her mouth that is attached to other things (like, say, my nipple, which is attached to my body) and she wants to turn her head and the thing will not go and also, Mommy gets mad and takes the thing away, she also cries. So there's some work to be done on that front yet, clearly.
Lucky for us, she has also started to make sounds that are not crying. This is a refreshing change of pace as it is now possible to (sort of) tell when she is enjoying something. Furthermore, she has made herself a source of entertainment in that she will sometimes pipe up in conversation with a little squeal or grunt at extremely convenient times, so that it almost sounds like she's voicing an opinion. Sometimes, when she is in an extremely good mood, this means we can have a conversation:
Me: Hi Leah! How are you today? Are you a happy girl today? Are you Mommy's happy girl today?
Leah: Aaaaahphhht!
Me: How do you feel about a new shirt?
Leah: Guh.
Me: Oh, my goodness. Look at that dirty diaper. That is such a big poopy for such a little girl. Yes it is. Yes it is.
Leah: ...*blank stare*
Of course, most of the time I just get the *blank stare* part of that, but I like to think that maybe, just maybe, that stare is not as blank as it looks. That maybe her little brain is cyphering on what I have just said.
Also, she smiles now! There really isn't any rhyme or reason to those smiles, though. Like the happy-grunty-not crying sounds, they are just there. Sometimes they are timed very conveniently so as to make Mommy or Daddy (or Grandma, who I think delights in the whole "smile" thing even more than we do) think we've done something to make her happy.
Then five seconds later she fixates her eyes on the china hutch for no reason, or fills her diaper, or starts to cry. After some observation, I've decided that her smiles are not at all an indication of emotion. They are an indication that she is about to change something about what she's doing, and I may or may not enjoy it. Each Leah Smile is like reaching into the Mystery Bag of Life.
And then there's the biggie. A couple of days ago, I was on the floor with Leah, doing the all-important "tummy time." Tummy time is one of those obligatory parent-things that we have to do even if the baby screams her little head off, because otherwise she will never develop stomach muscles and will be a helpless, back-laying nobody for the rest of her life. If you want to get anywhere in life, you need abs as a child. And so we do tummy time, which amounts to me putting her face-down on a blanket and letting her push and squirm and move around until she gets totally frustrated, at which point I will pick her up and assure her that the world did not disappear into red-and-white checker design. But I digress. We were doing the tummy time thing, and she got her little arms under her squirmy body, hoisted herself half an inch off the ground in a pseudo push-up position and then, right before my eyes, pushed herself over onto her side and then onto her back.
It was the most amazing thing I have seen in a very long time.
It also made me realize that, whether we are ready for it or not, Leah is now slightly mobile. Very soon, she will be able to roll the other way, too, and then she will be even more mobile. And then she will learn to crawl, and we are completely fucked and should probably re-take that Infant CPR class, because she is most definitely going to eventually put something in her mouth that she finds on the floor, because it's not like we're the best housekeepers in the world.
But I think we're safe for a little longer, as right now she is very much like a turtle. (I can no longer justifiably call her a potato. Potatoes, awesome as they are, are not capable of self-propulsion. If you want them to roll, they must be pushed.) Turtles, however, occasionally flip themselves over onto their backs for no discernible reason and get stuck there and can only flail their little legs in the air until someone comes along to help. That's exactly what Leah looks like right now.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Baby-Soft Skin and Other Mythological Things
First, a housekeeping issue. Some of you may notice that I deleted the post on my feelings about breastfeeding. There are two reasons for this:
1) After I got done being on my soapbox and was somewhat lesshormonal emotional, I realized that post was entirely not in line with my intended purpose for this blog in that it had everything to do with me being opinionated and very little to do with Leah, and
2) The comments on that post were a wankfest that resulted in the dissolution of a relationship that meant a lot to me. While valid points were made on both sides that directly related to the post, a lot of personal comments were also made, and I did not feel those belonged in a public forum.
Now. Moving on.
Over the last week or so, Leah has developed what I refer to as "an unfortunate skin condition." First her cheeks were extra rosy and a little dry, and we grouped it in with the rest of her skin, which was also going through a molting of sorts which All The Books assured us was completely normal in the first weeks of life. We put lotion on her and called it good. Then her scalp started to look funny and there were little red dots on her face, and people started to ask questions - "Are you sure it's nothing to be concerned about?" (Note: If you want to shake a new parent's confidence, there is no better way to do that than to ask if we're sure our child is normal.) We decided, based on a quick consultation with Dr. Google, that Leah was suffering from cradle cap and baby acne. Though unfortunate, both Dr. Google and her actual doctor assured us that both conditions a) were common and b) would go away on their own, though there were home remedies we could certainly try. We set about applying baby oil to her scalp and washing her face more regularly.
Then one day, very early in the morning after I'd been up most of the night, I looked at my little girl and realized that the yellow scaliness from her scalp had migrated south and now covered the entirety of her face, her neck, her chest and her upper back.
I completely lost my shit.
I scheduled a same-day appointment with the pediatrician, where the very nice doctor did a very good job of not patronizing me as she told me to CTFD. This, too, was relatively common, was not harmful to her and would go away on its own if left untreated. However, since it was clearly bothering me (and who wouldn't be bothered by their newborn child suddenly developing the skin of a reptile?), there was a cream that we could put on her face to speed up the healing process, make her skin less irritated and, in general, bring our perfect baby back to us sooner.
I have no delusions that Leah will grow up to be a model. She is doomed by heredity to suffer through years of acne that will inevitably leave her with scarred skin for all of her life. I just figured I had a good 12 years of confidence-building before that happened.
After five days of treatment, I'm pleased to report that Leah's "normal" baby skin is returning, though she does smell vaguely like cheese and the condition tends to leave yellow stains on her clothes as though she's the world's youngest smoker. I didn't take pictures, but I did find this blog entry by someone else that made me feel a million times better and more normal about everything that we've been seeing. As the saying goes, "misery loves company."
Here is where my baby girl starts to distinguish herself from a potato. I would not freak the hell out if one day I got out my potato and noticed it had yellow shit growing all over it. I would just toss the potato and get a new one.
Babies are sort of not like that. The law tends to frown on people who cannot make this differentiation.
1) After I got done being on my soapbox and was somewhat less
2) The comments on that post were a wankfest that resulted in the dissolution of a relationship that meant a lot to me. While valid points were made on both sides that directly related to the post, a lot of personal comments were also made, and I did not feel those belonged in a public forum.
Now. Moving on.
Over the last week or so, Leah has developed what I refer to as "an unfortunate skin condition." First her cheeks were extra rosy and a little dry, and we grouped it in with the rest of her skin, which was also going through a molting of sorts which All The Books assured us was completely normal in the first weeks of life. We put lotion on her and called it good. Then her scalp started to look funny and there were little red dots on her face, and people started to ask questions - "Are you sure it's nothing to be concerned about?" (Note: If you want to shake a new parent's confidence, there is no better way to do that than to ask if we're sure our child is normal.) We decided, based on a quick consultation with Dr. Google, that Leah was suffering from cradle cap and baby acne. Though unfortunate, both Dr. Google and her actual doctor assured us that both conditions a) were common and b) would go away on their own, though there were home remedies we could certainly try. We set about applying baby oil to her scalp and washing her face more regularly.
Then one day, very early in the morning after I'd been up most of the night, I looked at my little girl and realized that the yellow scaliness from her scalp had migrated south and now covered the entirety of her face, her neck, her chest and her upper back.
I completely lost my shit.
I scheduled a same-day appointment with the pediatrician, where the very nice doctor did a very good job of not patronizing me as she told me to CTFD. This, too, was relatively common, was not harmful to her and would go away on its own if left untreated. However, since it was clearly bothering me (and who wouldn't be bothered by their newborn child suddenly developing the skin of a reptile?), there was a cream that we could put on her face to speed up the healing process, make her skin less irritated and, in general, bring our perfect baby back to us sooner.
I have no delusions that Leah will grow up to be a model. She is doomed by heredity to suffer through years of acne that will inevitably leave her with scarred skin for all of her life. I just figured I had a good 12 years of confidence-building before that happened.
After five days of treatment, I'm pleased to report that Leah's "normal" baby skin is returning, though she does smell vaguely like cheese and the condition tends to leave yellow stains on her clothes as though she's the world's youngest smoker. I didn't take pictures, but I did find this blog entry by someone else that made me feel a million times better and more normal about everything that we've been seeing. As the saying goes, "misery loves company."
Here is where my baby girl starts to distinguish herself from a potato. I would not freak the hell out if one day I got out my potato and noticed it had yellow shit growing all over it. I would just toss the potato and get a new one.
Babies are sort of not like that. The law tends to frown on people who cannot make this differentiation.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
I Am, Except When I'm Not
All The Books will tell you that a 1-month-old Human child has no concept of object permanence. The thing about looking at that from an adult's point of view is that I have no concept of what it's like to have no concept of object permanence. My grown-up mind is blown by this concept that I sometimes don't exist.
(This is about to get pretty existential and deep. You might want to get some nachos or something.)
Last Wednesday, Dan and I left Leah with a baby-sitter so that we could go to an Infant CPR class. We were gone for a couple of hours, and when we returned, that baby looked at me as though she was laying eyes on the Great Maker herownself. This did wonderful things for my Momfidence, first of all, because I figured if she despised me, I would have gotten a look that said, "What are you doing back?" instead of, "OMFG MOMMY-THING EXISTS AGAIN!!!1!!"
I took her in my arms and smooched her little face and when I pulled back and did that thing that parents do - "Hi Leah! Hi! Hi!"* - she was just staring at me with huge blue eyes, and it succeeded in melting me into a Mommy-goo pile that got gooier at the center for every second she did not look away.
Clearly I had just performed the most awesome magic trick her little mind had ever seen: I ceased to exist, only to reappear again at a later time, continuing on with life as though nothing had changed. But is my two-hour David Copperfield impression enough time for her to forget that I am a thing?
And then I wondered, is the disappearance of some things more concerning to her mind than the disappearance of other things, or do we all rank pretty much the same on the "out of sight, out of mind" scale? If her Super-Favorite Frog Toy was lost (or stashed under the couch by the cat) and found again several hours later, would she reconnect with it on the same level as she does with Dan or I when we "disappear"? What is her little mind's capacity to remember things that she has less contact with?
I will have to do some experiments.
The other cool thing that happened this week is that she has learned to track objects with her eyes when they move. Granted, this seems to be limited to brightly colored objects that make rattle sounds and are placed directly in her line of sight no more than a foot from her face and only move left to right, but I hold out hope that she will someday track my movements, too, so that she'll follow me into... say, the kitchen. And fetch me a beer.
Someday, baby bird. Someday.
*It doesn't matter how extensive my vocabulary used to be. I find that even on days where I am being a Good Mom and Promoting Language Development by narrating my day to my daughter, I actually use very few big words. This is part of why I crave contact with grown-ups.
(This is about to get pretty existential and deep. You might want to get some nachos or something.)
Last Wednesday, Dan and I left Leah with a baby-sitter so that we could go to an Infant CPR class. We were gone for a couple of hours, and when we returned, that baby looked at me as though she was laying eyes on the Great Maker herownself. This did wonderful things for my Momfidence, first of all, because I figured if she despised me, I would have gotten a look that said, "What are you doing back?" instead of, "OMFG MOMMY-THING EXISTS AGAIN!!!1!!"
I took her in my arms and smooched her little face and when I pulled back and did that thing that parents do - "Hi Leah! Hi! Hi!"* - she was just staring at me with huge blue eyes, and it succeeded in melting me into a Mommy-goo pile that got gooier at the center for every second she did not look away.
Clearly I had just performed the most awesome magic trick her little mind had ever seen: I ceased to exist, only to reappear again at a later time, continuing on with life as though nothing had changed. But is my two-hour David Copperfield impression enough time for her to forget that I am a thing?
And then I wondered, is the disappearance of some things more concerning to her mind than the disappearance of other things, or do we all rank pretty much the same on the "out of sight, out of mind" scale? If her Super-Favorite Frog Toy was lost (or stashed under the couch by the cat) and found again several hours later, would she reconnect with it on the same level as she does with Dan or I when we "disappear"? What is her little mind's capacity to remember things that she has less contact with?
I will have to do some experiments.
The other cool thing that happened this week is that she has learned to track objects with her eyes when they move. Granted, this seems to be limited to brightly colored objects that make rattle sounds and are placed directly in her line of sight no more than a foot from her face and only move left to right, but I hold out hope that she will someday track my movements, too, so that she'll follow me into... say, the kitchen. And fetch me a beer.
Someday, baby bird. Someday.
*It doesn't matter how extensive my vocabulary used to be. I find that even on days where I am being a Good Mom and Promoting Language Development by narrating my day to my daughter, I actually use very few big words. This is part of why I crave contact with grown-ups.
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