(We are interrupting our irregularly scheduled birth story programming to bring you this update.)
M turned eight months old today. Sleep (especially naps) continues to be a struggle, but we keep trying new things, and I’m confident we will straighten it out. Eventually.
She is so active … it’s hard to remember the days when she laid quietly on her playmat, content to clumsily bat at the toys dangling overhead. She’s crawling like a pro, and easily goes up steps (but not down). She pulls up on anything and everything, and has learned to get back down on her hands and knees rather gracefully.
She also entertains herself by dropping a toy on the ground, holding on with one hand while leaning over to pick it up, and then dropping it again. And again. And again.
We hung a doorway jumper from the ceiling in the middle of our main living space, and she loves to run in large circles, squealing and shrieking with laughter (it helps that her papa sits near her and makes roaring noises whenever she passes by).
She also entertains herself by holding something in both hands (toy, pacifier strap, sheet, playsilk, anything), then pulling as hard as she can until it pops free from one hand. Repeat.
She is greatly amused by the sound her open palm makes as it strikes things. Particularly my wet thigh in the bathtub. And there’s plenty of that to slap.
There’s a star-shaped button on her exersaucer that plays Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and flashes lights. She’ll get it started, and then go about playing with the other toys. When the song stops, she swivels around with an annoyed look on her face and smacks the button again. And then ten more times, just for good measure.
She has located the on/off button on the mobile in her crib, and while I’m washing my hands in the bathroom after a diaper change, I’ll hear it go on, then off, on, off, on, off … I think she’s going to be a reliability engineer when she grows up.
She has taken to pulling her own hair, mostly when she’s nursing. She sinks her fingers in and YANKS. It looks horrifically painful, but I hear nary a peep.
She’s obsessed with the cats’ food and water dishes. I’m reluctant to put them in the basement because I’m too damn lazy to go down there every day. Plus it means we’d have to install the gate high enough for our fat, lazy cats to squeeze underneath – which would be violating the safety rules. Uh, when we get around to installing a gate, that is. We’re considering putting the food and water “up” on something that she can’t reach, but we don’t know what or where, and we’d also have to provide stepping stones for the fat, lazy, uncoordinated cats. A solution has yet to present itself. My goal right now is to make sure no cat food is eaten before it does.
She continues her love affair with tags. And everything still goes in the mouth. I was sick and had a bad cough, so she developed a “fake cough”, and would cough along with me. Imitating her cough is cause for general merriment.
With a little persistence, she finally started eating some solids. Not a lot – maybe 1-2 tablespoons a day. She accepted peas, pears, apples and sweet potatoes. But when she didn’t poop for 6 days, we decided to stop. She doesn’t seem to miss them.
I’ve started using her name more often, instead of sweetie, peanut, pumpkin, little stinker, stinkety stinker, or stinkety stinker of stinkinesss, so she is finally learning it. In addition to recognizing the milk sign, she also knows the verbal word “nurse”. If she gets distracted while nursing, I’ll say “M, nurse?”, and she’ll usually swivel her head back around and get down to business (for at least another 10 seconds).
Diaper changes are becoming more of a challenge, as she is determined to flip onto her hands and knees before I get a chance to attach the clean diaper. I left her strapped onto the table while washing my hands the other day, and returned to find her out from under the strap, sitting on her knees, hands on the railing, looking into the room. I don’t leave her alone on the table anymore. There’s a teddy bear mobile hanging over the changing table, and she loves to grab one of the bears and thrash it with abandon, which sets the whole mobile swinging wildly.
Both bottom teeth, and the right eyetooth and front tooth are in. What an odd order. Looks like she’s gotta be different – just like her mama. The left eyetooth is just breaking through the gum, and the left front tooth isn’t far behind. She’s a toothy girl. She still loves to grind her teeth together. It still makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. The boob biting has once again been conquered, although she occasionally gives me a little nip. And she knows what she’s doing, because she always looks straight at me with an evil glint in her eye. She continues to be an unabashed nipple pincher.
We are in the process of writing a will and doing estate planning. It’s horrible to think about one or both of us dying, but it’s necessary. The hardest part is to think of someone else raising M. No one will parent her exactly the way we do, and dammit, we’re the best parents in the world! Seriously, though, I’ve done a lot of work to become the person and parent I want to be, and there just isn’t a suitable substitute. And in addition to parenting skills, the chosen one also has to love M, because she deserves all the love she can get. So we finally settled on R’s parents. Their parenting skills leave something to be desired, but they have shown a willingness and ability to learn and change. And their love for her is unconditional and boundless. Hopefully this scenario will never come to pass, but we feel it would be irresponsible to not plan for it.
Another big part of that planning is financial, and I now know far more about life insurance, revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, marital trusts, family trusts, trustees, personal representatives and estate law than I ever cared to. And I still feel like I don’t understand half of it. I just hope our attorney knows what she’s doing.
I’m finding our sleep struggles to be a big challenge, and once again, I am forced to examine myself. It’s easy to blame M for everything, and get frustrated and angry, but I honestly believe a part of the problem lies with me. I like having control over myself and my life (okay, over everything), and that just isn’t very compatible with having a young baby. I get so angry when she won’t do what I want her to do, sleep when I want her to sleep, sleep how I want her to sleep. I come from a long line of fucked up people, and I knew that giving M space to be herself was going to be my biggest challenge as a parent. I didn’t begin to fathom, however, the myriad ways this would manifest itself. M takes me to school every day, and one of my greatest fears is that I’m going to fail at these lessons. I owe it to myself and her to do the very best I can. I just hope it will be good enough.
I often find myself telling her how beautiful she is, and although I think my baby is physically beautiful – what mother doesn’t? – that’s not what I mean. Whether she’s mad or sad or happy, she is so at home in her skin – a state I’ve been struggling to achieve for many years. I am humbled by the beauty of her spirit, and although it isn’t always easy, I strive to create a safe and nurturing environment so it can flourish.
I love you M, and I hope your spirit always contains the joy and openness that fills it today.
(Edited to add my darling husband’s comments:
“Noun 1. eye tooth - one of the four pointed conical teeth (two in each jaw) located between the incisors and the premolars.
IT’S NOT AN EYE TOOTH!”
Okay, okay. Her right two incisors are in. Sheesh.)