On Sunday, we had a bunch of families over, several of whom were in our birth classes. We've been getting together regularly, and various smaller groups of us also meet up for walks or going to the park, etc. This is, hands down, one the most important pieces of advice I have to give to new moms. Don't isolate yourself.
A friend just sent me a newspaper article yesterday about having a baby and finding yourself suddenly in the barren, lonely landscape of the 1950s middle class, white gender divide. It is truly a shocker for current day women to suddenly find their universe shrunk to the size that this tiny, dependent, not terribly interesting little baby occupies - everything else seems to vanish. And, the woman writing the article explains, compared to other advances women in Western countries have made, domestic tasks, especially those surrounding child rearing, are still startlingly unequal. This reminded me of a book I read a number of years ago, Wifework, which was great in the sense that is was fascinating...and horrible in the sense that it was pretty depressing look at what marriage and motherhood really mean for women...
On a societal level, this problem is complicated...and overwhelming. That doesn't mean, of course, that we should ignore it, but, I have to think - some of the time - on a more individual level. Like how am I, this person, right here, right now, living in a country with no mandated paid maternity/paternity leave, without adequately funded childcare options, going to negotiate motherhood in a way that is, overall, positive? Well, creating a community is crucial to this. I know I'm not the first to say this, but the nuclear family sucks. Maybe it takes a village to raise a child partially because the parents go crazy on their own? So, I say to all considering motherhood - think of it as an opportunity to grow your community and connect with others. It's still hard but so much better. I love so many, many mothers I have met this year. They have, undoubtedly, helped me continue to feel connected, positive and human.
On Sunday, I captured a little video of Ila with two girls who were born on the same day as her last year. A couple from our birth group had their daughter at the birth center the same night...and it's something very sweet to share. Though, at 4 AM when I could hear new little baby Charlotte crying, I felt quite jealous that it wasn't my baby that had finally come...and that I had more labor to get through. The other couple, who we know through the university, was giving birth at the hospital I had to transfer to because my placenta didn't deliver. Small world. Anyway, here the girls are...sort of sharing the little interactive table...
I am also lucky to have my mother around - lucky also to like having my mother around! Anyway, she is a bit crazy about Ila. I'm not sure how she would put it, in her more guarded way, but she totally loves playing with Ila and enjoying her new talents, like dancing and clapping.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Judgy Judge Judge Crawly Crawl Crawl
Recently, I was getting to be a bit smug about the whole sleeping thing. Ila was still waking up a couple times a night, but she was back asleep so quickly. And, she's in bed with me, so it's not that big a deal. Roll over, nurse, go back to sleep. Okay, I was beyond smug. I was really starting to become very retroactively judgmental about my early days with Ila. The sleep issue was the worst between 3 and 6 months for us...and I started looking back and thinking maybe it was me; maybe she has always been a fairly decent sleeper - you know, I was all uptight, tightly wound, not accepting this new world of sleep and failing to move through the whole experience without resistance. It was me.
Then last week happened: No; the earlier struggles with sleep were not because of me. It was Ila. She was going through a crappy sleeping phase. Moreover, I haven't grown and become all zen and accepting. Nope. Things just got better. I know this because last week she woke and stayed awake for an hour and cried and woke and stayed awake for two hours and nursed five times in a night and cried and stayed awake. And guess what? I was not all accepting and mature. I was pretty damn grumpy about the whole thing.
What I want to know is why I feel the need to look back and edit or judge or make sense of what happened in the past in some way that is totally dependent on my current experience. Change is just so hard to wrap my head around. It is, I suppose, not unique to me. It is a deeply human impulse to try and create a narrative that is stable. Even constructing a narrative is ultimately sort of questionable vis-a-vis reality...which is not really a narrative at all.
Similarly, the idea of "progress" for babies is totally problematic. I mean, Ila does a lot of experimenting in movement, vocalizing, eating, sleeping...that don't necessarily lead to anything. I guess in general she is progressing in development overall, but it's not a clear step-by-step process. It's full of weird behaviors that she does for a day or three...and then drops. Also, she's just suddenly do things without any prior "practice." I think this is why a lot of folks get so irritated by the milestones.
For example, ;last week, she was crossing her first two fingers on each hand constantly. Now she is done with that. Instead, this week, she claps her hands and throws her hands up over her head like a gymnast triumphantly completing her routine. She loves it if you do it as well. Then, she'll do the whole thing over again. Actually, this week, she's generally into mimicry. This was supposed to start a long time ago according to the milestones, but, as noted earlier, that pretty much means nothing. She will mimic syllables (especially "ma ma ma ma," which I particularly like to encourage), clapping, and her Victory Arms gesture. But who knows? She may stop all this tomorrow and never do it again. Looking for a real clear progression is totally absurd (...which is probably a life lesson from all this that I should try to apply to the rest of my experiences, but we'll see how far that goes).
In regards to the fallacy of "progress," Ila can crawl...but she doesn't really want to. She scoots on her butt a little or tries to stand up and climb on things rather than hang out on her hands and knees. Now, she could just never really crawl as a means of getting around or all this scrabbling and clambering around could lead to crawling. It's very fascinating how unpredictable and individual all this development is.
I had been thinking this was all proto-crawling and that she couldn't actually crawl yet. Eventually, this little crawling-like movements would lead - Ta Da! - to "real" crawling. Well, then I happened to leave her pacifier on one end of the bed and set her down on the other. Suddenly, she was crawling. She can do a lot when properly motivated, apparently. Still she has no interest in crawling out in the world. She may never really like to crawl. Who can say?
At any rate, this is a really exciting period. She loves to pick up toys, figure them out, toss 'em down, scoot around, stand up, do her bouncy little dance to songs she likes, babble and screech, play hide and seek or "chase the mama," get thrown up in the air dangerously close to the ceiling, read, eat books, eat paper in general, eat in general. She's pretty fabulous.
Then last week happened: No; the earlier struggles with sleep were not because of me. It was Ila. She was going through a crappy sleeping phase. Moreover, I haven't grown and become all zen and accepting. Nope. Things just got better. I know this because last week she woke and stayed awake for an hour and cried and woke and stayed awake for two hours and nursed five times in a night and cried and stayed awake. And guess what? I was not all accepting and mature. I was pretty damn grumpy about the whole thing.
What I want to know is why I feel the need to look back and edit or judge or make sense of what happened in the past in some way that is totally dependent on my current experience. Change is just so hard to wrap my head around. It is, I suppose, not unique to me. It is a deeply human impulse to try and create a narrative that is stable. Even constructing a narrative is ultimately sort of questionable vis-a-vis reality...which is not really a narrative at all.
Similarly, the idea of "progress" for babies is totally problematic. I mean, Ila does a lot of experimenting in movement, vocalizing, eating, sleeping...that don't necessarily lead to anything. I guess in general she is progressing in development overall, but it's not a clear step-by-step process. It's full of weird behaviors that she does for a day or three...and then drops. Also, she's just suddenly do things without any prior "practice." I think this is why a lot of folks get so irritated by the milestones.
For example, ;last week, she was crossing her first two fingers on each hand constantly. Now she is done with that. Instead, this week, she claps her hands and throws her hands up over her head like a gymnast triumphantly completing her routine. She loves it if you do it as well. Then, she'll do the whole thing over again. Actually, this week, she's generally into mimicry. This was supposed to start a long time ago according to the milestones, but, as noted earlier, that pretty much means nothing. She will mimic syllables (especially "ma ma ma ma," which I particularly like to encourage), clapping, and her Victory Arms gesture. But who knows? She may stop all this tomorrow and never do it again. Looking for a real clear progression is totally absurd (...which is probably a life lesson from all this that I should try to apply to the rest of my experiences, but we'll see how far that goes).
In regards to the fallacy of "progress," Ila can crawl...but she doesn't really want to. She scoots on her butt a little or tries to stand up and climb on things rather than hang out on her hands and knees. Now, she could just never really crawl as a means of getting around or all this scrabbling and clambering around could lead to crawling. It's very fascinating how unpredictable and individual all this development is.
I had been thinking this was all proto-crawling and that she couldn't actually crawl yet. Eventually, this little crawling-like movements would lead - Ta Da! - to "real" crawling. Well, then I happened to leave her pacifier on one end of the bed and set her down on the other. Suddenly, she was crawling. She can do a lot when properly motivated, apparently. Still she has no interest in crawling out in the world. She may never really like to crawl. Who can say?
At any rate, this is a really exciting period. She loves to pick up toys, figure them out, toss 'em down, scoot around, stand up, do her bouncy little dance to songs she likes, babble and screech, play hide and seek or "chase the mama," get thrown up in the air dangerously close to the ceiling, read, eat books, eat paper in general, eat in general. She's pretty fabulous.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Eat, Poop, Read
Ila has become a book aficionado in the last several weeks. Okay, admittedly, she's loved books for a while but mostly as a chew toys. Now she's actually into the stories and pictures and turning the pages and hearing the animal sounds and petting the furry patches on the "Touch & Feel" books... In other words, books have gone from a digestive delight to a more cerebral one. Okay, she'll still nibble a corner if you let her. Paper products of all kinds are a favorite snack of hers, after all. It was amazing to watch this transformation. One day, she was still a squiggly little bundle with absolutely no interest in what you were doing while you tried to read her night time stories...then, all of a sudden, she was laughing and screeching and cooing at the pictures. It's sort of alarming how completely babies can change, seemingly overnight.
Another bizarrely fast adaptation our little one made recently is pooping and peeing on a potty. We've been just putting her on the toilet with a cute "toilet seat reducer" four or five times a day - and, surprisingly, she often goes to the bathroom there. I know a number of parents who are really into the whole "elimination communication"/diaper free baby business. I was intrigued by it but had about as much motivation to try it with Ila as I had to, say, jump out of airplane when she was a newborn.
Some folks do it that young, apparently with success. I was too exhausted and totally bewildered to add anything like that to the mix. Still, I thought about trying it as she got older, but I really hadn't gotten around to it. Then, at the end of January, our diaper service went out of business and, to be perfectly honest, the thought of dealing with lots of poopy cloth diapers and a gray water system provided the needed motivation. She pooped on the potty the second time I set her on it. Crazy. She still pees and poops occasionally in her diaper, but she goes a lot on the toilet. And she just started did it - bam! I find it a little strange that she would get it so instantly, but I guess babies are more cued into these things than I give them credit for...
Along these follow-the-lead-of-the-baby ridiculous hippie-style parenting lines, we've been doing this "baby-led weaning" strategy for introducing solid foods. Contrary to what the name of this method would lead you to believe, this approach has little to do with weaning. Right at the start, the authors of the book (called Baby Led Weaning) explain that if you take this route, your child really should be able to breast feed on demand for as long as they need to, probably well into their second year of life, at least. I understand why they chose this name - you introduce solids and get your baby off the breast all in their time - baby-led! But I think the choice to put "weaning" in the title of a method that has no real weaning goal is odd. Okay, I guess there's a weaning method, but it's not really an objective in any concrete way.
Maybe the name puts me off because, at this point, I don't really care about weaning. Really, I sometimes think I could do the whole crazy breast feed until the baby is like five. If you are lucky enough to not have to pump and you're past the first month of nipple torture, breast feeding is pretty darn awesome. Even in the middle of the night I sort of love it. I roll over and she latches on. It's awesome choreography. Or, we're like the mother-ship and the little satellite ship coming to dock. Really, that's what I think about at 2 AM. Almost every night. Why? Maybe I watched Star Wars or The Next Generation too much as a young person.
Anyway, the main idea of baby-led weaning, however stupidly named, is that you introduce solids that your baby can hold onto, manipulate, and feed to themselves, instead of spoon-feeding them only purees. We do still feed soft and gooey foods to her with a spoon, but she loves to be in charge of her own food. It's fairly interesting and has gone pretty well. She gags occasionally, and I have fleeting fears of her choking. This often happens when she's eating a totally mushy, non-choke-causing food like yams. Though nerve-wracking, I guess that's all pretty normal for the beginning of eating. Whenever anything more than a pea-sized amount of food - say hummus - gets into her mouth, she'll often gag. I guess this is a reflex to keep babies from choking, but it also makes for a lovely meal time sound track.
Despite the gagging, she was totally fascinated by food from the beginning, but, in the last two weeks, she seems to actually want to eat, not just taste and play with food. Like with the books, it's like a switch has been flipped. Before, food was interesting; now it appetizing. Her little pincer grip - the ability to grab with index and thumb - has markedly improved recently, too. This makes the whole eating thing a little more engaging and workable for her as well! She's still wildly clumsy with food - and sometimes when she's worked so hard to get the bit of food in her little fingers and then drops it right as she's trying to put it in her moth, I feel so sorry for her. Really, I almost start crying a little. Needless to say, she doesn't care at all. In fact, it seems kind of fun for her as she works on her hand coordination. All I can think of, though, is serious accident victims learning to feed themselves again in some grueling physical therapy situation.
Other than our more routine daily adventures, we did have a real life International Traveling Adventure. Actually, there wasn't too much adventure in our venture...just long traveling days to Belize for our dear friends' lovely wedding. Ila's interest in books was a blessing on our flights. Although Kiyomi and I got a little tired of reading Where Does Maisy Live? after the hundredth time. Still, Ila was, all in all, a real traveling champ during her first international trip. She loved the water, the sand - especially eating the sand - all the new people, pineapple and riding on Kiyomi's back on a bike. Yeah, this was the dare-devilry of our trip. There wasn't a baby bike helmet to be had on the island, apparently. We felt a bit guilty, but it was so fun to be able to ride with her. I rationalized it by telling myself there aren't any cars on the island and not even any pavement - just packed sand. Plus, everybody else was doing it!
Well, it all worked out without incident, fortunately. It was so lovely just to hang out - the three of us - without any work to do. Just eating, riding around the island, going to the beach, seeing our friends, putting Ila on the potty now and then, reading Maisy books over and over. I'm not quite sure why I'm not always on vacation.
Another bizarrely fast adaptation our little one made recently is pooping and peeing on a potty. We've been just putting her on the toilet with a cute "toilet seat reducer" four or five times a day - and, surprisingly, she often goes to the bathroom there. I know a number of parents who are really into the whole "elimination communication"/diaper free baby business. I was intrigued by it but had about as much motivation to try it with Ila as I had to, say, jump out of airplane when she was a newborn.
Some folks do it that young, apparently with success. I was too exhausted and totally bewildered to add anything like that to the mix. Still, I thought about trying it as she got older, but I really hadn't gotten around to it. Then, at the end of January, our diaper service went out of business and, to be perfectly honest, the thought of dealing with lots of poopy cloth diapers and a gray water system provided the needed motivation. She pooped on the potty the second time I set her on it. Crazy. She still pees and poops occasionally in her diaper, but she goes a lot on the toilet. And she just started did it - bam! I find it a little strange that she would get it so instantly, but I guess babies are more cued into these things than I give them credit for...Along these follow-the-lead-of-the-baby ridiculous hippie-style parenting lines, we've been doing this "baby-led weaning" strategy for introducing solid foods. Contrary to what the name of this method would lead you to believe, this approach has little to do with weaning. Right at the start, the authors of the book (called Baby Led Weaning) explain that if you take this route, your child really should be able to breast feed on demand for as long as they need to, probably well into their second year of life, at least. I understand why they chose this name - you introduce solids and get your baby off the breast all in their time - baby-led! But I think the choice to put "weaning" in the title of a method that has no real weaning goal is odd. Okay, I guess there's a weaning method, but it's not really an objective in any concrete way.
Maybe the name puts me off because, at this point, I don't really care about weaning. Really, I sometimes think I could do the whole crazy breast feed until the baby is like five. If you are lucky enough to not have to pump and you're past the first month of nipple torture, breast feeding is pretty darn awesome. Even in the middle of the night I sort of love it. I roll over and she latches on. It's awesome choreography. Or, we're like the mother-ship and the little satellite ship coming to dock. Really, that's what I think about at 2 AM. Almost every night. Why? Maybe I watched Star Wars or The Next Generation too much as a young person.
Anyway, the main idea of baby-led weaning, however stupidly named, is that you introduce solids that your baby can hold onto, manipulate, and feed to themselves, instead of spoon-feeding them only purees. We do still feed soft and gooey foods to her with a spoon, but she loves to be in charge of her own food. It's fairly interesting and has gone pretty well. She gags occasionally, and I have fleeting fears of her choking. This often happens when she's eating a totally mushy, non-choke-causing food like yams. Though nerve-wracking, I guess that's all pretty normal for the beginning of eating. Whenever anything more than a pea-sized amount of food - say hummus - gets into her mouth, she'll often gag. I guess this is a reflex to keep babies from choking, but it also makes for a lovely meal time sound track.Despite the gagging, she was totally fascinated by food from the beginning, but, in the last two weeks, she seems to actually want to eat, not just taste and play with food. Like with the books, it's like a switch has been flipped. Before, food was interesting; now it appetizing. Her little pincer grip - the ability to grab with index and thumb - has markedly improved recently, too. This makes the whole eating thing a little more engaging and workable for her as well! She's still wildly clumsy with food - and sometimes when she's worked so hard to get the bit of food in her little fingers and then drops it right as she's trying to put it in her moth, I feel so sorry for her. Really, I almost start crying a little. Needless to say, she doesn't care at all. In fact, it seems kind of fun for her as she works on her hand coordination. All I can think of, though, is serious accident victims learning to feed themselves again in some grueling physical therapy situation.
Other than our more routine daily adventures, we did have a real life International Traveling Adventure. Actually, there wasn't too much adventure in our venture...just long traveling days to Belize for our dear friends' lovely wedding. Ila's interest in books was a blessing on our flights. Although Kiyomi and I got a little tired of reading Where Does Maisy Live? after the hundredth time. Still, Ila was, all in all, a real traveling champ during her first international trip. She loved the water, the sand - especially eating the sand - all the new people, pineapple and riding on Kiyomi's back on a bike. Yeah, this was the dare-devilry of our trip. There wasn't a baby bike helmet to be had on the island, apparently. We felt a bit guilty, but it was so fun to be able to ride with her. I rationalized it by telling myself there aren't any cars on the island and not even any pavement - just packed sand. Plus, everybody else was doing it!
Well, it all worked out without incident, fortunately. It was so lovely just to hang out - the three of us - without any work to do. Just eating, riding around the island, going to the beach, seeing our friends, putting Ila on the potty now and then, reading Maisy books over and over. I'm not quite sure why I'm not always on vacation.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Sucking Face
Ila does a lot of weird stuff with her mouth. The two oddest at the moment sound pretty tawdry: blowing on my nipple and sucking on my face. Right now she's really into opening her mouth just a bit and blowing out air through the small parting of her lips. This was interesting to me just as a new skill in her repertoire. However, she now stops nursing but stays on the breast, just detaching her bottom lip a little...and she blows. This is even more skillful, I guess. Perhaps a new developmental milestone?
The much more graphic penchant she has is to give me big, slobbery open-mouthed kisses. When she's getting hungry, and I am holding her, she leans toward my face with an open mouth and latches on wherever her mouth lands. My jaw, my eyelid, my cheek, my nose. Then, she gets going slobbering and sucking. I'm lucky to avoid a hickey. As she comes at me, like a baby vampire, she has this amazing look of purpose. I'm not entirely sure what this is about. I'm assuming she's hungry. But maybe not?
The funny thing about her Baby-acula routine is that it's weirdly touching to me. It strikes some primal chord. She gets hungry and just wants to attach to me somehow; get her herself hooked up to the chuck wagon. And this is...somehow very sweet to me, like she wants to fuse her little being to me with that part of herself that she is most in touch with - her mouth. It's the port to her little soul.
Anyway, I am sure I sound like a weirdo here, but something in my resonates with this bizarre baby kiss. Something in my very core responds to it. It's not unlike my desire to give her kisses all the time, which is what I do instead of gobbling her up. And I almost mean that literally; I sometimes want to...just absorb her. Freaky, I know. I suppose the mouth is deeply connected to the way that we attach ourselves in love and affection to others. So, I guess I'll take these wacky little kisses while I can get them.
The much more graphic penchant she has is to give me big, slobbery open-mouthed kisses. When she's getting hungry, and I am holding her, she leans toward my face with an open mouth and latches on wherever her mouth lands. My jaw, my eyelid, my cheek, my nose. Then, she gets going slobbering and sucking. I'm lucky to avoid a hickey. As she comes at me, like a baby vampire, she has this amazing look of purpose. I'm not entirely sure what this is about. I'm assuming she's hungry. But maybe not?
The funny thing about her Baby-acula routine is that it's weirdly touching to me. It strikes some primal chord. She gets hungry and just wants to attach to me somehow; get her herself hooked up to the chuck wagon. And this is...somehow very sweet to me, like she wants to fuse her little being to me with that part of herself that she is most in touch with - her mouth. It's the port to her little soul.
Anyway, I am sure I sound like a weirdo here, but something in my resonates with this bizarre baby kiss. Something in my very core responds to it. It's not unlike my desire to give her kisses all the time, which is what I do instead of gobbling her up. And I almost mean that literally; I sometimes want to...just absorb her. Freaky, I know. I suppose the mouth is deeply connected to the way that we attach ourselves in love and affection to others. So, I guess I'll take these wacky little kisses while I can get them.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Phases & Faces
Anne Lamott, in her lovely and funny book about her journal from her son's first year, documents the tender and sweet pats her son gave her breast while nursing at some point after he was several months old. This was a new developmental milestone: Hurray, baby can pat! Baby shows love for mama, or, at least, affection for The Boob, that favorite part of mama. In fact, this is a developmental note on many charts, "baby pats mother's breast." 
This particular milestone is probably not that important, but it lodged in my brain; I've thought of it a lot, especially in those early painful weeks of breastfeeding. It helped to think my breasts, currently enduring nipple torture, would - soon! - be favored with something sweeter and kinder, little pats from their biggest fan, Ila. It was exciting just to think of Ila doing anything. This was New Ila, the tiny larval being who didn't show affection or even much sustained interest in anything. Imagine her reaching out, consciously, with determination, to fondly pat me. That's a pretty sweet little idea. 
This is what really happened. Ila started, recently, pulling off my breast mid-nursing, to a position about 4 inches from me to stare down my nipple as if it were a riddle she couldn't figure out, or a taken-for-granted, inanimate, everyday object suddenly gifted with speech or even magical powers. She was riveted, absolutely curious and fascinated. Then, instead of the affectionate pat I'd been expecting, she reached out her hand and grabbed my nipple and tried her hardest to pull it off. Hmmm. I think I'll take the pat. Though she does the nipple stare down frequently, fortunately she doesn't often try to take it with her as a souvenir. This doesn't really feel like an awesome new developmental step, to be honest.
Although, I haven't consulted developmental charts much in recent months, some steps really stick with me. Odd ones, too. For instance, I can't remember anything about when Ila may say her first word according to the charts, but I know that she's supposed to be clapping soon. Which is strangely important to me. Why? I'm not sure, but I find myself thinking when I see other babies her age clap, "Oh my god, maybe there's something wrong with her. Why isn't she clapping?! Maybe she's autistic." Now, the link between autism and clapping isn't well understood, or event existent, but it where my brain goes. She's not smiling much; maybe she's autistic! She's not crawling; maybe she's autistic and developmentally delayed. These worries are not really founded in anything reasonable; nor do I think they are linked to consulting charts and comparing Ila to them. No, it's just old fashioned fear; I must worry about something apparently. Usually it's autism.
Fortunately, for my neurotic, autism-obsessed mind, she has been really opening up to the world lately. She makes a much wider array of faces, noises, smiles. She has this weird almost fake smile. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a smile or just something she's trying with her face. It's sort of a grimacy, teeth-gnashing smile. This is when she is in fact gnashing her teeth. Because, yes, she is grinding her teeth, apparently something normal for some babies at certain stages. This is another developmental step I think I could have skipped.
She's also becoming adept at not-really-wronged cries. When you take something from her hands, she has a special cry. She used to sort of squawk, a hollered mixture of startled surprise and displeasure. Now she does this longer, fake cry thing, like something is really wrong. I suppose, from her perspective, something is wrong to her - she doesn't have what she wants. Now, I suppose, the job of parenting is determining the best way to sort out how you deal with the different wants a child has...which all makes me think that, while having an infant is difficult in it's own way - namely, physical exhaustion and sleeplessness - kids certainly get trickier, taking more sophisticated tools to deal with.
Oh well. I don't really have enough energy to get too worried about anything that remote right now - is this the bright side of sleep deprivation? Plus, that baby is so damn cute.
This particular milestone is probably not that important, but it lodged in my brain; I've thought of it a lot, especially in those early painful weeks of breastfeeding. It helped to think my breasts, currently enduring nipple torture, would - soon! - be favored with something sweeter and kinder, little pats from their biggest fan, Ila. It was exciting just to think of Ila doing anything. This was New Ila, the tiny larval being who didn't show affection or even much sustained interest in anything. Imagine her reaching out, consciously, with determination, to fondly pat me. That's a pretty sweet little idea. 
This is what really happened. Ila started, recently, pulling off my breast mid-nursing, to a position about 4 inches from me to stare down my nipple as if it were a riddle she couldn't figure out, or a taken-for-granted, inanimate, everyday object suddenly gifted with speech or even magical powers. She was riveted, absolutely curious and fascinated. Then, instead of the affectionate pat I'd been expecting, she reached out her hand and grabbed my nipple and tried her hardest to pull it off. Hmmm. I think I'll take the pat. Though she does the nipple stare down frequently, fortunately she doesn't often try to take it with her as a souvenir. This doesn't really feel like an awesome new developmental step, to be honest.
Although, I haven't consulted developmental charts much in recent months, some steps really stick with me. Odd ones, too. For instance, I can't remember anything about when Ila may say her first word according to the charts, but I know that she's supposed to be clapping soon. Which is strangely important to me. Why? I'm not sure, but I find myself thinking when I see other babies her age clap, "Oh my god, maybe there's something wrong with her. Why isn't she clapping?! Maybe she's autistic." Now, the link between autism and clapping isn't well understood, or event existent, but it where my brain goes. She's not smiling much; maybe she's autistic! She's not crawling; maybe she's autistic and developmentally delayed. These worries are not really founded in anything reasonable; nor do I think they are linked to consulting charts and comparing Ila to them. No, it's just old fashioned fear; I must worry about something apparently. Usually it's autism.
Fortunately, for my neurotic, autism-obsessed mind, she has been really opening up to the world lately. She makes a much wider array of faces, noises, smiles. She has this weird almost fake smile. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a smile or just something she's trying with her face. It's sort of a grimacy, teeth-gnashing smile. This is when she is in fact gnashing her teeth. Because, yes, she is grinding her teeth, apparently something normal for some babies at certain stages. This is another developmental step I think I could have skipped.
She's also becoming adept at not-really-wronged cries. When you take something from her hands, she has a special cry. She used to sort of squawk, a hollered mixture of startled surprise and displeasure. Now she does this longer, fake cry thing, like something is really wrong. I suppose, from her perspective, something is wrong to her - she doesn't have what she wants. Now, I suppose, the job of parenting is determining the best way to sort out how you deal with the different wants a child has...which all makes me think that, while having an infant is difficult in it's own way - namely, physical exhaustion and sleeplessness - kids certainly get trickier, taking more sophisticated tools to deal with.
Oh well. I don't really have enough energy to get too worried about anything that remote right now - is this the bright side of sleep deprivation? Plus, that baby is so damn cute.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Singing the Song of Ila
I planned to write something different, something NOT about sleep...then, Ila decided to wake up at 9:30 PM and stay awake until 1 AM. So, here I am, talking about sleep again. It gets...what? Old, I guess. I feel that I'm becoming quite dull - I just talk about her sleep - how little there is, how broken up it is, how I feel about it, how I feel without sleep... There's so much else going on, so many other things to say, right? Maybe not.
This focus on sleep is not unique. I have decided that when people say that having a baby is difficult, it is mostly because, with an infant around, they are missing one of these:
1. sleep
2. free time
3. the illusion of control
The thing is, I will finally "adjust" to whatever broken up semblance of a good night's sleep I'm getting...then, Ila will do something new and exhausting, like this. I think that is probably what life with an infant is like - always changing. Therefore, having an infant is like having infinite opportunities for Personal Growth. Which is about as fun as it sounds.
This weekend, I was thinking about the fact that I'm very aware of how quickly Ila is changing - how much more big and grown up she is now that she babbles, sits up, holds her head up, grabs things...how I've kind of forgotten what she was like as a tiny baby. This makes me a little sad; not that I want to go back...or that I think having a baby is the best part of having children. I hope to enjoy most of my time with her (I'll see how those teens years go) - ideally, I will love all the periods, at least in some way. No, it's not that I want her to stay a baby forever; it's just that watching her move through her baby life so fast, makes me realize that all of the times - all of life, really - goes so fast.
Okay, here we are again, at another of my favorite topics: the Indianapolis 500: Race to Death. Death, endings, death, endings. I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing about it...all I can say is, I'm sick of it too. Apparently, astrologically, I've got a lot going on with Death. I guess it's a very charged topic for my life. So, it's a fertile soil for me to...blah blah blah. I can't even pretend to finish that sentence. Fertile my foot.
Back to life, for the time being.
Other than throwing the occasional sleep curve ball, Ila's generally pretty happy and calm. She is not particularly interested in getting places too fast. A couple babies her age, from her birth group, are already crawling. Not Ila. She's also not really rolling much. She's pretty content to move at her own, unique pace - which is, for the time being, a slow one.
She is, however, busy with other things. She's really waking up to the world of smiling social interactions. She's started getting very excited when she knows she's going for a walk or getting a bath. In fact, even when Kiyomi just takes off her diaper and clothes to carry her naked to the bathroom, she gets all smiley and happy. Then, she tries to dive into the water as soon as she sees it. It's pretty adorable, especially with all her crazy, different-stages-of-growth little teeth. She looks a little hill-billyish when she really grins.
She's been a very pensive and intensely observant little being so far in her life - a little stingy with the smiles and laughs, to be honest. However, she's really coming out of her shell. She used to always do this thing where, if you weren't looking at her, she'd stare and stare at you. Then, when you looked at her, she'd look away. She's looking away a little less and even smiling. I'm so fascinated by this; it seems so different than either Kiyomi or me. I wonder if she will be shy or reserved...or just a little quiet? Or, totally the opposite. Who knows what any of this means?
Speaking of predicting her future, my lovely yoga teacher did an astrological reading for Ila today. Among other things, she has a lot of female energy, focus on women, etc. in her chart. And, kind of a lack of manly energy. That's amusing. Maybe, at some point we should have a male friend be her "big brother." I'm not sure what we would ask of him - to take her fishing? Is fishing something men do more than women? Will it offer the manly energy she needs? Could we just have a mannish woman show her how to fish?
I guess Ila's also supposed to be a career powerhouse. That's also fascinating. I haven't really thought a lot about this in relation to Ila. I guess I have thought that I hope she finds something she loves to do...but, very generally. It is kind of exciting - in a really sort of icky, egocentric way - to imagine her being powerful and successful in her chosen profession. Hmmm, I should probably not get too caught up in that. If I do something ridiculous, like become a crazy stage mom taking my kid to all kinds of gross talent searches or commercial auditions, please kick me in the shin. Really hard. Then maybe slap me, just for good measure.
I suppose on the most basic level, I hope that Ila is happy. I mean, lately - after reading several books on happiness - I am not sure that's necessarily the point of life. What is the point of life? I'm not sure. I guess, "be happy" has been a fairly standard answer of mine. But, when I think about it, I guess I really want to be fulfilled more than simply happy. Those two things overlap...but not always, not at 2 AM when Ila wants to nurse for the fifth time. Then, I think, I am working toward being fulfilled - that is, I am doing the work of having a child, which is something that make me feel connected, competent, engaged, human in a really embodied, powerful way - but I'm not necessarily happy about it at that moment.
In keeping with this, I've been reminding myself, at frustrating moments, that to be present with her is the best gift I can give her right now. Even if it is taking inordinately long for her to fall asleep and she keeps waking up or she wants to be held all day long regardless of all the things I think I need to get done, just moving through those hours calmly and without resistance is an amazingly powerful and simple - though sometimes challenging - way to nurture my little one.
This focus on sleep is not unique. I have decided that when people say that having a baby is difficult, it is mostly because, with an infant around, they are missing one of these:
1. sleep
2. free time
3. the illusion of control
The thing is, I will finally "adjust" to whatever broken up semblance of a good night's sleep I'm getting...then, Ila will do something new and exhausting, like this. I think that is probably what life with an infant is like - always changing. Therefore, having an infant is like having infinite opportunities for Personal Growth. Which is about as fun as it sounds.
This weekend, I was thinking about the fact that I'm very aware of how quickly Ila is changing - how much more big and grown up she is now that she babbles, sits up, holds her head up, grabs things...how I've kind of forgotten what she was like as a tiny baby. This makes me a little sad; not that I want to go back...or that I think having a baby is the best part of having children. I hope to enjoy most of my time with her (I'll see how those teens years go) - ideally, I will love all the periods, at least in some way. No, it's not that I want her to stay a baby forever; it's just that watching her move through her baby life so fast, makes me realize that all of the times - all of life, really - goes so fast.
Okay, here we are again, at another of my favorite topics: the Indianapolis 500: Race to Death. Death, endings, death, endings. I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing about it...all I can say is, I'm sick of it too. Apparently, astrologically, I've got a lot going on with Death. I guess it's a very charged topic for my life. So, it's a fertile soil for me to...blah blah blah. I can't even pretend to finish that sentence. Fertile my foot.
Back to life, for the time being.
Other than throwing the occasional sleep curve ball, Ila's generally pretty happy and calm. She is not particularly interested in getting places too fast. A couple babies her age, from her birth group, are already crawling. Not Ila. She's also not really rolling much. She's pretty content to move at her own, unique pace - which is, for the time being, a slow one.
She is, however, busy with other things. She's really waking up to the world of smiling social interactions. She's started getting very excited when she knows she's going for a walk or getting a bath. In fact, even when Kiyomi just takes off her diaper and clothes to carry her naked to the bathroom, she gets all smiley and happy. Then, she tries to dive into the water as soon as she sees it. It's pretty adorable, especially with all her crazy, different-stages-of-growth little teeth. She looks a little hill-billyish when she really grins.
She's been a very pensive and intensely observant little being so far in her life - a little stingy with the smiles and laughs, to be honest. However, she's really coming out of her shell. She used to always do this thing where, if you weren't looking at her, she'd stare and stare at you. Then, when you looked at her, she'd look away. She's looking away a little less and even smiling. I'm so fascinated by this; it seems so different than either Kiyomi or me. I wonder if she will be shy or reserved...or just a little quiet? Or, totally the opposite. Who knows what any of this means?
Speaking of predicting her future, my lovely yoga teacher did an astrological reading for Ila today. Among other things, she has a lot of female energy, focus on women, etc. in her chart. And, kind of a lack of manly energy. That's amusing. Maybe, at some point we should have a male friend be her "big brother." I'm not sure what we would ask of him - to take her fishing? Is fishing something men do more than women? Will it offer the manly energy she needs? Could we just have a mannish woman show her how to fish?
I guess Ila's also supposed to be a career powerhouse. That's also fascinating. I haven't really thought a lot about this in relation to Ila. I guess I have thought that I hope she finds something she loves to do...but, very generally. It is kind of exciting - in a really sort of icky, egocentric way - to imagine her being powerful and successful in her chosen profession. Hmmm, I should probably not get too caught up in that. If I do something ridiculous, like become a crazy stage mom taking my kid to all kinds of gross talent searches or commercial auditions, please kick me in the shin. Really hard. Then maybe slap me, just for good measure.
I suppose on the most basic level, I hope that Ila is happy. I mean, lately - after reading several books on happiness - I am not sure that's necessarily the point of life. What is the point of life? I'm not sure. I guess, "be happy" has been a fairly standard answer of mine. But, when I think about it, I guess I really want to be fulfilled more than simply happy. Those two things overlap...but not always, not at 2 AM when Ila wants to nurse for the fifth time. Then, I think, I am working toward being fulfilled - that is, I am doing the work of having a child, which is something that make me feel connected, competent, engaged, human in a really embodied, powerful way - but I'm not necessarily happy about it at that moment.
In keeping with this, I've been reminding myself, at frustrating moments, that to be present with her is the best gift I can give her right now. Even if it is taking inordinately long for her to fall asleep and she keeps waking up or she wants to be held all day long regardless of all the things I think I need to get done, just moving through those hours calmly and without resistance is an amazingly powerful and simple - though sometimes challenging - way to nurture my little one.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Ila & the Rotten Eggs
So, Ila's Christmas present to us was the worst night of sleep ever. Seriously, compared with the beginning of her life, this was quite extraordinary. Those first few nights of her life were hard, and I felt like a trauma survivor only sort of surviving, but Ila herself wasn't really fussy. On Christmas Eve however, she woke every 45 minutes or so and screamed when she woke up. Teething? Too much excitement? I'm not sure, but it was hideous. It's a good thing she didn't do this earlier - back in June or July, when we were really strung out on new infant insanity - because somebody might have lost it.
Since then, it hasn't been so bad, just her usual waking a few times or being awake a while. However, I just snuggle her and try to go back to sleep. This is so much better than having to get up and walk her around just to keep her from shrieking. I have no idea what I would have done if Ila had been more of a screamer or had had colic. You sort of partially lose your mind in those situations, I think. I imagine you feel like you're doing something wrong, you drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what it could be, but it's really totally out of your control. Ugh, next to "be patient," "admit you don't have control and accept it" is my least favorite life lesson.
After Ila's night of hollering, I think she was a courting a little no-sleep hysteria. She had a crazy laughing fit in the morning when Kiyomi threw an eggshell back down into the egg crate. So, Kiyomi scolded the eggs and violently abused them for ten solid minutes to Ila's utter delight. What a bizarre sense of humor she has.
For the New Year, I would like to try and enjoy the present. I realized last night after watching the very dark new Harry Potter movie (much better than the last!), that I am always thinking about endings. I'm not sure if I'm a "glass half empty" or "glass half full" person; I only know for certain that I'm a person who is obsessing about when my glass will be empty even if it is totally full and what I'm going to do about it and how I'm going to get it filled back up and whether I can even be happy without a full glass.
I realized this about myself right after college. I found that when I was on vacation, I had this panicky feeling about how quickly my lovely trip would go and how sad I would be when it did end. Sort of gets in the way of just enjoying reality, no? Now I'm doing the same thing with Ila. I move through my days with this vaguely panicky feeling that she's going to grow so fast, that I will be old and sad and without my sweet baby, who will be off on her own, walking around on two grown legs, thinking and eating and learning and living her life, in about two heartbeats or something insane like that. Who needs that pressure? So, I say, I'll try to enjoy the present without obsessing about it ending and changing.
To that end, yesterday morning, I was lying in bed waking up with her from our morning nap (I had to join her for this one - holiday exhaustion) just enjoying being close to her. She moves her hands around in front of her when she's lying on her back waking up. She was doing these tiny and totally asymmetrical hand clasps, where her fingers are all interlaced, but unevenly and awkwardly, with extra fingers mashed together, etc. Then she lifted her little hands and spent a minute or two just crossing the first two fingers of her left hand, you know, in the "good luck" or the "I get to lie 'cause I'm crossing my fingers" kind of way. She kept doing it over and over like she was practicing her little finger coordination. It is fascinating and so sweet to watch her little hands and to witness all her new little discoveries.
Since then, it hasn't been so bad, just her usual waking a few times or being awake a while. However, I just snuggle her and try to go back to sleep. This is so much better than having to get up and walk her around just to keep her from shrieking. I have no idea what I would have done if Ila had been more of a screamer or had had colic. You sort of partially lose your mind in those situations, I think. I imagine you feel like you're doing something wrong, you drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what it could be, but it's really totally out of your control. Ugh, next to "be patient," "admit you don't have control and accept it" is my least favorite life lesson.
After Ila's night of hollering, I think she was a courting a little no-sleep hysteria. She had a crazy laughing fit in the morning when Kiyomi threw an eggshell back down into the egg crate. So, Kiyomi scolded the eggs and violently abused them for ten solid minutes to Ila's utter delight. What a bizarre sense of humor she has.
For the New Year, I would like to try and enjoy the present. I realized last night after watching the very dark new Harry Potter movie (much better than the last!), that I am always thinking about endings. I'm not sure if I'm a "glass half empty" or "glass half full" person; I only know for certain that I'm a person who is obsessing about when my glass will be empty even if it is totally full and what I'm going to do about it and how I'm going to get it filled back up and whether I can even be happy without a full glass.
I realized this about myself right after college. I found that when I was on vacation, I had this panicky feeling about how quickly my lovely trip would go and how sad I would be when it did end. Sort of gets in the way of just enjoying reality, no? Now I'm doing the same thing with Ila. I move through my days with this vaguely panicky feeling that she's going to grow so fast, that I will be old and sad and without my sweet baby, who will be off on her own, walking around on two grown legs, thinking and eating and learning and living her life, in about two heartbeats or something insane like that. Who needs that pressure? So, I say, I'll try to enjoy the present without obsessing about it ending and changing.
To that end, yesterday morning, I was lying in bed waking up with her from our morning nap (I had to join her for this one - holiday exhaustion) just enjoying being close to her. She moves her hands around in front of her when she's lying on her back waking up. She was doing these tiny and totally asymmetrical hand clasps, where her fingers are all interlaced, but unevenly and awkwardly, with extra fingers mashed together, etc. Then she lifted her little hands and spent a minute or two just crossing the first two fingers of her left hand, you know, in the "good luck" or the "I get to lie 'cause I'm crossing my fingers" kind of way. She kept doing it over and over like she was practicing her little finger coordination. It is fascinating and so sweet to watch her little hands and to witness all her new little discoveries.
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