Tummy Time and Reading

Now that all of our family is gone, Alaska and I have had more time to get to know each other. I was just a little self-conscious to talk to her when everyone was listening, ya know? I didn't want to sound like a crazy person talking to someone who couldn't respond back, but mostly I didn't want to say the wrong thing. What if I talked to her and she screamed louder? I was supposed to be her mother and that means knowing exactly what to do all of the time. I couldn't let on that I had no idea what I was doing. I always let someone take her when she was crying if they offered. I figured two mothers knew a lot more about calming babies than I did, even if she was my own little girl.

I will forever remember when we got back from a walk to the post office and Megan and I were the only ones in the house with Alaska screaming her eyeballs out. Seriously, those things were bulging in the way only a newborn can make them do.I don't know what I was thinking, but I half expected Megan to take her and bounce her around like she was so good at doing. I had more faith in her giving Alaska what she needed than I had in myself. Isn't there something twisted with that? I just stood there, petrified by the screaming mouth and bulging eyes that had become my baby. It wasn't until Megan offered to help me get her out of the stroller that I realized that it was my job to calm her down and I was terrified. It should have been my first instinct to scoop her up in my arms and sing her a lullaby or rock her, but instead it had taken Megan prodding me to pick her up.

Everyone so far had always reached out and taken her from me when she was bawling. Much to my relief and to my annoyance. How was I going to learn how to calm her if I never got her when she was crying and to my relief because I had no idea what to do. I felt so much pressure to make her be quiet and behave when I really had no idea who this little being in my arms was. All of her cries sounded the same and I didn't have a huge arsenal of 'this could be wrong, try this.' It was terrible.

We've been having a lot of needed time together. She has her tummy time while I pick up the scattered baby clothes and burp cloths and ditch them in a soaking tub of biz. She's gotten a more predictable schedule of being awake for a hour and a half and then we have quiet reading time as I spill out love story after love story by Nicholas Sparks while she falls asleep in my arms. I know that when a chapter is through she's generally asleep enough to be put down. I am beginning to recognize her cries as tired or hungry and it has brought relief to both of us. Her frustrated screams come less often, though they still come. Life isn't perfect, but it's better.