kim through
   the looking glass

I read about kids starting to use items for their intended use around Gwen’s age and thought “Aw, how cute!”

Awwww, how cute!

Um yeah. Ridiculously cute! This is Gwen yesterday using the TV remote as a phone. We gave her the real cordless phone and she threw it on the ground. Apparently she doesn’t think it’s a real phone like the remote is!

Gwen started grabbing the comb out of my hand and rubbing it on her own head a couple of weeks ago and I realized just how crazy important that milestone really is. My kid now understands that a comb is for brushing hair! Wow! That’s a pretty big leap from the ‘what’s that spiky black thing and why are you rubbing it on my head?’ look she’s been giving me since birth …

The cutest yet? This morning while I was brushing my teeth, Gwen was holding her foot in one hand and a shoe in the other, trying to get her foot in the shoe.

(Is it bad that the thought after ‘Heehee - she’s trying to put her shoe on!’ was ‘oh crap, now she’s going to want to do it herself and the TANTRUMS, OH THE TANTRUMS!’)

It’s naptime and there is (literally) a jackhammer outside my house.

I’ve got the kid who is afraid of her father using an electric shaver and terrified of the vaccuum, even when it’s being used two floors away.

This day is going to be interesting.

First, let me caveat this post by saying that, in the rare occurance that I may actually get to sleep during the day and have a decent nap, as soon as I stand up, I am in pain. Extreme gas pain that puts me in a fouler than foul mood and is often accompanied by moaning, crying, groaning, and lying curled in the fetal position for 30 mins - 1 hour. I can’t tell you how long this has been the case, but long enough to know that unless I really need that nap, it’s really just not worth the aftermath. That said, let’s move on

Brad advised me this morning to sleep with Gwen goes down for her naps. We’ve both (yeah, I’ll get around to updating about that eventually) been quite sick, and I. Am. Exhausted. I shunned the idea for Gwen’s first nap, as it occured at only 9:30am, but I thought maybe for her second, I’d see what happens. Following is an account, for my darling husband, of what transpired during said ‘nap’. Please know that these events are not isolated and their occurence is well noted by myself under 4 - 5 months of observation. This wasn’t a one-off.

I had gone out to get lunch - a bagel - from a local shop and saw some friends while there. I arrived home at around 1:45pm, perfect timing for Gwen’s second nap, since she’d awoken from her first (1+ hours) at 10:45am. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning, clear Gwen signs that a nap will easily overtake her.

I decided to nap with her in our bed - one of my favourite things to do when she was little - and got us all comfy-cozied up. She latched on … and popped off. And latched on … and popped off. Bright eyed and bushy tailed now that we’re trying to get her to sleep, my kid played. Until 2:39pm. We had some cute moments, as she rewarded me with the ever-elusive Gwen giggle after I tickled her belly a few times, followed promptly by a head-butt into my sore, congested, sinuses. Thanks, Gwen.

So. At by 2:39pm, she was whiny and clumsy. I had lain there the whole time hoping against hope that she would tire quickly and I could still get my nap. I got us comfy-cozied up again (oh, and she’d fallen asleep in our bed for her naps just fine on Saturday when I had been too tired/weak to move, so it’s not because she was in our bed. Nice try though - I knew what you were thinking!) and … oh right. Comfy-cozied up again and she nurses and slips blissfully into a quiet sleep. I lay there staring at her, blissful amidst the nursing hormones and begin drifting off a few minutes later.

To be awoken at 3:00pm.

That’s right, people, my kid slept for 15 minutes.

That, my dear sweet Brad, is why I don’t try to nap anymore. I’ll take sheer exhaustion over that fiasco any day! Although today I got to enjoy that fiasco followed by sheer exhaustion made worse by the fact that my body thought it was going to get to sleep followed by kill-me-now gut pain. Yay!

Can any one else see why I find it difficult day after day to find the sunshine and puppy dogs in being a mother?

This is what keeps me going. This kid is seriously cute.

Oatmeal Face!

Mistress Mouse seems to be feeling better - yesterday she was awake 3+ hours in between her naps and she took a 1.5 hour nap on her own in the afternoon!! I don’t know why, but it appears that when she’s not feeling so good she actually sleeps LESS than normal.

I’ve been re-reading parts of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka’s book, Raising Your Spirited Child. It’s been good for me - mostly because the first time I read it, Gwen was only a few months old and although I knew she was going to be ’spirited’, I couldn’t yet identify many of the temperamental traits that made her spirited. On the second read-through, I’ve identified:

• Intensity - my favourite description of this is, “a living staircase of emotion, up one minute, down the next,” (Kurcinka, 2006, p. 41). Um yeah. That about does it.
• Sensitivity - “has to have quiet to sleep,” “a selective eater,” “acts out your stress,” (Kurcinka, 2006, p. 45).
• Regularity - “never falls asleep at the same time,” “is hungry at different times each day,” (Kurcinka, 2006, p. 55). Gwen, Gwen, Gwen.
• Energy - anyone who has ever watched Gwen or held her will know that this is one of her traits … she is NEVER still.
• First Reaction - “Rejects at first or watches before joining in,” (Kurcinka, 2006, p. 57). Now, it depends on the activity, but generally speaking, she’s a watcher. Or she joins in and then decides she’s not ready yet and wants to snuggle for a while before joining in again.

There’s a few temperamental traits that I’m not sure about - adaptability, persistence, mood, and perceptiveness - mostly because she can’t yet communicate enough to be sure.

Bath Time!

Either way, I’m finding the book to be helpful in helping me to name the traits that she’s exhibiting and find new ways of labeling them - for example, instead of ‘dramatic’, say ‘expressive’; instead of ‘emotional’, say ’sensitive’. It’s been good for me to learn how Gwen might think and, especially, how she is probably feeling inside during different situations. For example, it’s helpful for me to know that if she is prone to having a negative first reaction, she is actually, physically experiencing a racing heart, dilated pupils, rising blood pressure, and tense vocal cords and that it is a physical reaction tied to her genetic make-up (Kurcinka, 2006).

Look at me!

And seriously. How cute is this kid? Even though sometimes her reactions drive me a bit batty, she’s the sweetest, most curious, happiest baby for the most part. I couldn’t imagine my life without her now that she’s here and I’m loving getting to know this little person!!