"What are YOU lookin' at?"She has decreed that everything in our lives should revolve around her. And so it does. I know that thousands of people warned us about this phenomenon when they heard we were expecting: "Say goodbye to sleeping in," they said, and "Make sure to go out to dinner a lot before she's born, because you won't ever go again!" "Your lives will change forever!!!"
We nodded innocently, trying to understand and appreciate their perspective, but we had to live it to understand it.
Her latest edict is that, following her royal feedings, she should be held and not returned to her crib or swing until she is good and ready. When we try to put her back down, she alerts us with a melodic tone (the silver lining here is that we're pretty sure she screams in tune). This edict can not be suspended even for the dreaded 3 a.m. feeding -- we must dutifully rock or bounce her until she indicates by a steady stream of drool that she's ready to go back to bed. The real challenge is that the time limit for this post-feeding chill-out time is completely subject to her royal whims; it can be as short as 10 minutes or stretch to an hour and a half or longer. The other night I was practicing balancing her on my chest as I propped myself against the headboard of our bed, with my torso inclined at about a 45-deg. angle, hoping I wouldn't doze off and she wouldn't slide off of me (or at least if she slid that she would slide to my right and land on the bed between me and Devoted Wife). Maybe tonight I'll put the extra pillows down on the floor next to me on the left in case my luck changes for the worse.
The photo I posted above is certainly not the cutest pic we have taken of her. But given the long nights we experienced this weekend, it certainly seemed appropriate.
Most of the time she is a beautiful little angel and we sit and stare at her while she sleeps, or even while she's noisily slurping up her dinner. (As an aside, I love to watch her eat! It's the perfect union of mother and child, and when she eats it makes me feel like she's doing exactly what she was made to do. She gained 18 oz. in the last two weeks, so she's apparently eating plenty. From watching her eat, that's no surprise to us.) But when she refuses to go back to sleep after eating and her crying sounds like a Wagner aria, its hard not to wonder how things will be when she can't wear the skirt she wants to wear to school, when she breaks up with her first boyfriend or when her mean dad won't let her stay at her best friend's house when her parents are out of town.
Heaven help us!
2 comments:
I was wanting to reply to the previous post and then saw this one and, you know... So, as our neighbor said when we had our son - "every cliche becomes real". The "yeah, whatever" nods during pregnancy turn into "oh, now I understand" really quick. There are some very universal feelings. About facial expressions, you'll notice every nuance. It's awesome. I work from home and today when I went downstairs to grab some lunch, Coen looked at me so bashfully then smiled and reached out for me. Kills ya man. It's awesome.
You've described having number one so well. Just when you think you are unique and no one gets it you read other people's blogs and have a reality check. You just word it better than most.
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