Sunday, August 9, 2009

EUREKA!

I don't consider myself a conformist or one to worry much on the 'rules' but I have fallen prey to the great baby "milestone" race. Simply put, what she IS doing vs. what she SHOULD BE doing. I know, I know - all babies learn at their own pace and just because Rya is not doing something when a book or website says she should does not mean there is anything wrong with her blah blah blah.......this makes sense, is posted as a disclaimer following each list of 'supposed too's', and more importantly I know it to be true. But that does little to silence the nagging thoughts in the back of my head. I mean, its not so much the individual things that bother me, its the general concept or what falls under the whole umbrella of 'movement' or 'comprehension' that give me pause.

This SAHM (stay at home mom) thing has its perks; no cramming for deadlines and meetings, no late nights at the office causing me to forgo evenings out with my family or friends, no uncomfortable moments dodging office politics but, believe me, my life is not without stress. If you think about it, I am supposed to be providing an environment that teaches her EVERYTHING about this world and how she fits into it. And EVERYTHING is allot people.....its, well.....every THING, that's ALL the THINGS.... EVER! Its my job to make sure I am challenging her and teaching her daily at every meal time, play time, sitting and wondering if its 7 at night and BEDTIME. So when she falls short in areas its not a huge leap towards mom's feelings of failure.

There is a happy ending (or more so, beginning) though - we have had a breakthrough! It was a wave, a single wave - to an un appreciative cat that had this mom breathing a huge sigh of relief.



That tiny chubby handed wave snowballed into a few other eureka moments that week in the comprehension department, making me feel like I had just received a raise and a company car for a job well done. Turns out, it was all about the approach. Instead of pointing at the ball and saying, "BALL" with enthusiasm abound expecting her to one day do the same - all I had to do was ask. Yea, just ask. "Rya, where is the ball?" And she looks at me then the ball and taps it looking back at me like, "Um hello - its this thing right here that you point to every day and squeal over like forty times in a span of 5 minutes mom....jeez." Cut to me screaming "YAAAAAAAAAAY!" at the top of my lungs while tearing up and her, after initially being startled (hands flying in the air with a look of 'holy shit') eventually grinning from ear to ear - happy that she made me happy. That day, I discovered that she knows what feet are (I think she has a bit of a fetish) and, most importantly, who MaMa and DaDa are too. Lets just say I've got some calls into Harvard for pre-applications. It seems now that she gets it. Gets what we are saying and is trying to figure it all out along with us.

As for the movement aspect - well, we have a ways to go on that. She is still content to just sit where you put her (which is not all that bad really if you think about it). If a toy gets out of reach she just looks at it like, "Oh well. That was fun." and sticks her hand into her mouth or studies the stitching on the hem of her dress. I don't know WHO she gets that patience from because it does NOT come from my side of the family. She has NO desire to crawl either but she loves to stand if you hold her up. We think that she will skip the creeping and crawling and one day just get up from a sitting position and casually travel to the fridge for a snack or something (THAT feat would come directly from her dad for sure!)
6 comments

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

MESSAGE TO MOM


Look deep....deeeep into my eyes.

You will put down that baby and pick up this remote at which time you will find an embarrassingly trashy reality television program on your TIVO season pass list. In response you will sit down on the couch, thus providing a mushy lap for the kitty. Following this action, we will snuggle for a minimum of 6 hours, like we did on the weekends before you had the nerve to bring that thing home.

Snuggle....
the....
kitty....
4 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
 
Add to Technorati Favorites