On babies entertaining themselves
Last night Katie commented to me that at this age (14 months), babies require your absolute focus every second their awake. The Bug had been in a good mood most of the day yesterday, which was extra nice considering her cold. But by the time I got her home (6ish), she only wanted her mother to hold her. And when she wasn’t being held, she screamed. Neither one of us could figure out what was wrong.
Silly us. It turned out we just weren’t noticing the Bug’s signals that she was ready for supper and bed. I guess it just seemed too early in the evening, although seven o’clock isn’t really too early for such a youngin.
Sure enough, C went down without a fuss. She was ready.
And today, the baby who needed so much attention last night has been completely entertaining herself for at least thirty minutes. What’s keeping her so busy? A large cup and two drum sticks.
What else does a child need?
Speaking of naps
It’s usually easy to tell when C needs to take a nap: when it’s nap time, she won’t let you put her down.
But when she’s sick, like she is now, it throws everything off. She’s been generally fussy for a week now, poor baby. And you can’t really tell when she’s ready for a nap, because everything makes her unhappy.
Lucky me
Tonight, C (who still lacks a good internet moniker - sorry, she’s just no Mongo (it’s not feminine enough, I guess)) really wanted her dad to put her to bed. She fussed and fussed and fussed. I’d made us a nice supper of wings, fries, and asparagus - asparagus goes really well with wings, as it turns out - and every bite Katie ate was with a fussy baby in her lap. Like I said, she fussed and fussed and fussed. Nothing was pleasing her. I even took her outside for a minute to snap her out of her fuss fest.
But what did it was my sitting down and feeding her a bit, and she went right off to sleep.
When I first started feeding her some, I was less than impressed. I was. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her, it’s just that I got little out of the feeding part. But now I love it. I love being able to hold her in my arms and make her feel happy. And I really love being able to get her to sleep. It’s not something every guy gets to experience, putting his baby down to sleep. And it’s a simply amazing feeling. And after a bit of her sleeping in my lap, I carried her into the bedroom and put her to bed.
Lucky me.
Not in a great mood
It’s hard for me to start the day in a good mood when C fusses all the way (that’s about 35 minutes) to work in the morning.
Bleh.
