By: Revanche

My kid and the velociraptor claws: Notes from Month 4

June 15, 2015

I can take on any dog or cat and trim their nails but holy shekels, trimming LB’s nails is … a nail biter.

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I didn’t know it was normal for babies to hate tummy time. LB spent a lot of time faceplanting for most of the first few days, crying angrily.

We don’t seem to have growth spurts at regular intervals. We have five days on and two days off, if we’re lucky, from the things that seem to indicate growth spurt: increased appetite, intermittent wakefulness through the night. Makes for interesting sleeplessness on the part of hir hapless parents but also incredibly interesting development. We could see hir cognition becoming sharper and more focused one day to the next, adding deliberate interaction and movement to the mix.

One day, ze held my hand and selectively chewed on one finger at a time, clearly testing and rejecting on the search for the perfect finger. The next day ze picked up hir pacifier and tried to put it in hir mouth.

Out of the blue, ze decided that ze was going to turn over on hir belly from hir back. I couldn’t tell you what brought this on. Over 6 days, ze started the attempts. One every other day. On the last of the 6 days, on hir third actual attempt, ze made it. Angry and crying the whole time. Once accomplished, it seemed forgotten but really ze was just gearing up for five more days of seeing what else ze could do with this skill.

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Some day, ze will sleep in hir crib for daytime naps, right? RIGHT? Please say yes.

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The answer IS yes! We had to break all the rules but since ze is so strong, I’m not so worried anymore. Ze always rolls over onto hir face now that ze has mastered the art, so over the course of a few weeks, we added blankets and pillows and bumpers to the crib, experimenting with what seemed most comfortable.

Ze gets stuck on hir belly because apparently rolling from the back is easy but rolling from the belly is not. My child, ze is backwards. But in the process, ze often gets a limb stuck in the prison bars, so bumpers were much safer. It’s helped a lot, and once a week, ze might even sleep more than 6 hours at a stretch! And the cozier (blankes and pillows) the bed, the longer ze might sleep.

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The moment LB actually looked at us, not through us, or past us, or around us, but actually directly at us was pretty cool. But far better was the moment that ze progressed from smiles to little gurgles to full blown belly chortles. It’s intoxicating! Hir eyes just about disappear into the creased chubby cheeks, hir mouth opens wide and curves into a huge toothless grin, the laugh wells up from hir toes. Hir whole body shakes with each outburst of glee. Needless to say, once I discovered that kissing hir cheeks or tickling hir cheek with my hair accidentally produced that chortle, I did that forever. Or at least until my face hurt from laughing.

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Lots of “holy crap, this is OUR child” moments.
Ze rides in the stroller the way I ride in cars, feet kicked up, slumping down into the seat;
Crinkles hir face like I do;
Has some of PiC’s facial features;
and some of mine.
Weird.

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