Turns out that baby girl -- maybe I'll start calling her Darling? -- broke skin on two new teeth last night! It's exciting and wonderful, but until you know what's happening, it's also totally confusing. I mean, one night your baby is sleeping pretty well, only waking up once or twice and then easily going back down, and the next night she's up four times. And she's up again four times the next night.
Night number three was last night, Friday night. We told ourselves that we would work hard to continuing teaching Darling that she needs to sleep in her own bed. So after changing and feeding the baby, I rocked her to sleep. She wouldn't stay down, so dad rocked her. She still wouldn't stay down! Dad rocked her again. I rocked her again. I fed her again. We changed her again. We even tried letting her cry for a little bit! Finally, utterly exhausted and feeling very sorry for our sweet pea, we let her sleep in our bed. She slept fitfully, but finally she slept.... for a couple of hours.
I could go on about our sluggish, grumpy morning, but I'll spare you the details. Let's just fast-forward to mid-day, after a mini-nap for Darling, when she opened her mouth at just the right angle and I noticed the two white lines poking through her gums, and everything suddenly made sense. Oh, the poor baby! Lesson learned, mama B: If the baby won't sleep outside your arms, then give her long, tender cuddles. She has a good reason, and she'll go back to her own bed in a few days. (You think I would have learned this during the first round of teething, at Christmastime, but sometimes I'm a bit thick in the head! :o)
We did go back to the pottery store today and made new imprints of Darling's little hands. They aren't perfect -- she tried to grab handfuls of clay when we pressed her fingers into the gooey goodness -- but Nate reminded me it wouldn't be an honest rendering if her hands were perfect. Darling has her own opinions about things, and I think the imperfect prints will be a sweet reminder that she likes to do things her way. (Sounds like she's definitely a Jackson girl, huh? I wouldn't have it any other way.)
Since we're still on the topic of babies, I want to share an article. (Side note: I actually have several articles I want to share, and I'm hoping to find time to write a separate post with a quick summary of each article. There's been some good stuff in TIME lately.) I got the article from my friend Kimmy earlier this week -- it's about how to improve a baby's attention span. It's awesome and succinct. Check out www.janetlansbury.com/2010/04/baby-interrupted-7-ways-to-build-your-childs-focus-and-attention-span.
I was glowing with joy at the second recommendation: No TV o r videos for the first two years. Nate and I feel very strongly about this subject; we work very hard to keep Darling away from "TV" and movies and even stuff on the computer. From his four years of experience in early childhood education, Nate already knew about the debilitating effects TV has on small children. Blessed me, I was able to learn from him.
That said, the article pointed out a lot of areas where I could improve. I read the article probably three times in one day, spend half a day thinking about it, and started making adjustments around our house. For instance, I cleaned up our home office so all the baby "no-no" items were out of her reach. I also re-organized the bookshelf in the office so that all of baby's toys are on the bottom shelf, where she can pull them off for play/study/etc. The added bonus is that I no longer have to chase her or worry when she's in the office and I'm in the kitchen (which adjoins the office). She's safe. And she has plenty of time and room to explore, discover, learn, and practice her focusing muscles. Insert sigh of relief and happiness. Ahhhhhhh.
1 comment:
Or she could be "Nom-nom." How about "Grrl" since she thinks the "grrr" sound is hilarious.
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