In the Last Month

In the last month, Myah has changed a lot. Changes include the development of those cute little baby thigh rolls, the emergence of a personality and, yes, my glorious reward of her first smile.

1. First, the kid eats a LOT. She loves to eat and is not fooled by the presence of a pacifier which almost never does as its name implies.

2. Second, this girl speaks her mind--she has to--or else be left in the dark since I spend so much time chasing after "No-No"--a.k.a big sister Sonia. Myah is what we call a very "vocal" baby. Friends comment that she'll be my little singer someday. Day and night the kid is making sounds whether they be grunting (there's lots of that) or crying (there's more of that than I'm accustomed to) or rumbling (top end AND bottom). The spit up is frequent, the diaper changes are often and my clothes are stained.

3. But...lastly...that glorious smile I mentioned. It's a beautiful smile that lights up the whole room and my heart. The work of getting up at night and the results of the aforementioned rumblings all melt away when I get an occasional smile. Her first real smile was on June 8th. I was lucky enough to be able to share that day with my mom who was here then helping me with the kids for a week. Since then, Myah smiles occasionally, that is, it's not a regular occurrence and usually doesn't happen without some prodding, however, I believe that such occurences will increase in the weeks ahead as her and I continue our journey of learning to understand one another as best we can.

This "understanding" has begun to pick up speed only in this last week. Until then, I was having a hard time knowing what she wanted or needed at a given time--hence the "more crying than I'm accustomed to." The biggest light bulb in this dark closest has been the realization that Myah cries when she needs to sleep, that is, she "announces" the fact that she's tired rather than just dozing off quietly. After someone turned on this lightswitch for me, I haven't been trying to keep a crying baby awake and happy by holding her and constantly attending to her. Rather, I lay her down and she cries for a few minutes and, before you know it, she glides into baby dream land. It sounds crazy, but it actually took me all of six weeks to figure that out.

Speaking of "weeks," Myah is seven weeks old...today.