It’s crazy how she already applies different roles to us. I mean, I realize that I’m the mommy and so am/have the food, but there are things she will do with one of us an not the other.
Prime example:
If I am holding her, she either wants to be nursing, attempting to sit or stand up, playing a game, or I have to be standing and carrying her around while doing stuff or singing her to sleep with her head on my shoulder. She’s squirmy. She has to be moving or sleeping (or pseudo-sleeping while nursing). On or off. That’s it.
With daddy it’s another story. She’s willing to snuggle with him and just hang out. I’ve come home to find them lounging on the couch, just chillin’ or they’ll both be laying on their side on the couch and she’s perfectly content to just lay there with him, wide awake. She won’t do that with me! I’ve tried, believe me, to just cuddle with her, but she gets bored with it quickly and wants to play, not sit.
Even this morning, I let her nurse in bed with us for awhile but then it was getting really late so I had to get up before she fell back asleep and she was completely uncool with me leaving her behind. She whimpered for a little bit (new thing, whimpering like a puppy) and watched me get ready. Eric was lying there still but she was ignoring him, and continued to until I left.
Then I received texts with pictures of them cuddled up in bed, happy as a clam. *mutter mutter*
Eric said she actually rolled over twice to get near him: she rolled onto her belly then continued on until she was up against him, with her head resting on his arm.
Sooo… not only will she cuddle with him but she’ll also roll completely over TWICE for him. *mutter mutter*
But I know that I’m the comforting one. We went to the train show this weekend and Eric’s dad, brother and sister-in-law and their kid were all there too. Crystal was carrying Aria around so Eric and I wandered off and at some point we were told our baby was crying hysterically so we found Crystal and Aria was searching the room with her eyes, and they locked on me when she saw me and she reached out for me. Poor little baby, I think it was just a little overwhelming with so many people and so many noises and stuff. I held her and she sobbed into my shoulder for a few minutes; I rocked back and forth and hummed a little to her and she calmed down and eventually just fell asleep. It’s nice to know I’m soothing to my little punkin.
I just hope as she grows she continues to think of me as fun, too, and not just the one to run crying to. I actually hope that we can get the giggles together like Kristy and mom and I did when we were little.
I keep being exposed to sad baby stories. From reading about false pregnancies where women believe they have a baby only to be told that their body has been tricked and there is no baby, to the story of a friend’s sister who carried a baby for 38 weeks then was told that her baby was strangled by the umbilical cord since the last doctor’s visit and had to go through the entire birthing process only to hold a dead baby at the end and not get to take her home. These things depress me.. I can’t even imagine having to endure something like this, and to not have my little Aria.
It all makes me so incredibly grateful, not just that I have and get to keep my most beautiful, wonderful, adorable, little baby girl, but that I was fortunate to have an easy pregnancy that I didn’t appreciate while I was experiencing it. Even the delivery process – my baby was in jeopardy because everything they tried caused her heart rate to plummet which made the whole thing a challenge, but the option for c-section was available so really even if things got really bad I would still almost certainly not have lost my baby.
It’s good to be sad once in awhile, if it reminds you what you are or should be grateful for. Helps you count your blessings and appreciate them all the more. I can’t believe how much I love Aria. It’s unfathomable where all this love came from, how I already, after only 5 months, can’t imagine life without her.
Yesterday I made fajitas for dinner. Eric was standing there putting his together, but suddenly he turned to me and struck a pose, like a body builder. Then he turned back and continued what he was doing. I looked at him quizzically, but when it was my turn to make my fajitas I saw why.
*Sigh*… He cracks me up.
TMI Warning: This post contains references to mommy boobs (there are no boob images, however)
I think it happened by accident the first time. Aria’s little hands were flailing around, then coming to rest in front of her as she nursed. She explores some, often finding my hair or shirt, or she grabs one of my fingers or the blanket to flail around, or she latches onto her own shirt or other hand. Well one day she found the nipple shield (I did warn you about TMI). In the event that you are not familiar with one of these, it’s a little plastic thing you put on… you. It’s initially meant to help new moms 
with nursing trouble with their newborns, but some of us are too lazy to ever stop using them, either because it hurts like the dickens when you do try to go without, or because the baby becomes really used to it and it’s hard to teach her to go without.. or, if like me, both reasons apply.
So four-five months into babyhood we’re still using this thing and she discovered it with her little fingers, grabbed ahold of it and pulled it right off. She looked at it for a minute, then proceeded to try to suck through it… which didn’t work. But she didn’t want to give it back to me. I was afraid of tearing it so had to gingerly pry her little fingers off to reapply it to myself.
A few weeks later it happened again and she realized that it was something that she could turn into a game. Those little fingers started gradually making their way up to her mouth… and then snag! She would pull it off and mommy would fight her to get it back. I think it highly amused her. Even when she realized she couldn’t get anything out of it she still was enjoying the game of trying to get it away from me.
She was very vocal about her thoughts on the subject:
I’ve discovered the definition of being a mom – in charge of feeding everyone.
It happened the other night, I was making dinner with Aria in her highchair watching, but gradually her happy meter was falling into fussitown. Eric was busy working on something in some other room and the cat was swirling recklessly around my ankles, threatening to cause some sort of dangerous calamity for one or both of us, desperately trying to get my attention. He was out of kitty kibble and there was no more to be found in the house.
I finished making dinner, took the baby and let her nurse as I yelled to Eric that dinner was ready, and once she finished I wolfed down some now-cold-but-reheated supper, handed the baby to Eric, then ran out into the night to the grocery store to buy some cat food. Once home, as I was filling the cat’s dish, Eric came into the cat’s room with Aria in hand and they looked at me curiously. That’s when I told him I had discovered my role in life. To make sure everyone was fed.
I guess Mom also means a bunch of other stuff, like soother/comforter, hugger and kisser, playmate, maid, etc. But food is one of those things that once it becomes needed it’s already a dire situation that needs urgent attention. Then once food has been found and consumed it’s all blissfully forgotten for a little while. Unless you need a good burping.. then it’s still kinda dire for a little while.. until it comes out the other end.
Little Z's 