Ever since MZ learned to get up and rock on her knees, she's been obsessed with movement. She knows there's a way, and boy does she want it, but she can't quite figure it out. She rocks, and rocks, and does downward dog, and shifts from one foot to another. But none of these result in forward motion, and soon she's grunting and hollering in abject frustration.
Recently she's also had disrupted sleep, waking me in a panic with distressed crying from her crib, usually about 1-2 AM. The first time, when I ran in and saw her on her knees, rocking and screaming, I scooped her up to comfort her, and she cried harder. It took an hour to calm her and get her back to sleep. After that, I paid more attention and realized that through all this, she is STILL ASLEEP. So I've been patting her lightly until she settles back into a deeper slumber.
I've assumed the disrupted sleep is due to teething, but one of my child development books mentions that this behavior can occur when babies are on the verge of a development milestone such as crawling or walking. The poor thing truly IS obsessed with crawling. It haunts her sleep!
The intensity that this seems to indicate is a little frightening, and I can't help feeling sorry that Robert and I have passed this trait on to her -- our intensity, doubled.
It's been several weeks now, what with wrapping up work, changing computers and slogging through technical difficulty after technical difficulty. Once again the temptation to recap must be overcome.
MZ has changed so much in these weeks, she's sitting comfortably now, and trying oh so hard to crawl. And she's finally interested in all those books, actually looking at the pictures. She's particularly responsive to anything sing-songy, like The Owl and the Pussycat or Wynken, Blynken and Nod.
We've embarked on playgroups in the last few weeks, too. While some of the babies are natural grabbers or interact freely with other babies, our MZ is much more likely to watch the play than grab a toy and dig in. We have no idea if this portends anything at all, but it is fascinating to watch her as she watches. We two extroverts struggle to understand what's going on in that head of hers, but whatever it is, it wipes her out, inevitably she takes a 2-3 hour nap after getting together with babies her age.
Robert and I went on a date last night, our first since MZ joined our world. We left her with Grandma S. and went out for a drink at Bliss, and dinner at Firefly, repeating our date of the night before she was born. Except this time I could have a cocktail, and wine with dinner, and raw-milk cheese.
We managed to do more than just talk about Miraculous Miriam, but being at Firefly, at a banquette table adjacent to where we sat last time, it was impossible not to, and in fact wonderful to compare that night to where we are now.
Parenting MZ is truly the most amazing thing we've ever done. Maybe because we waited so long and crammed so many experiences into our time before MZ, and maybe because of what it took to get to her, but we feel grateful, relief beyond imagine, happiness unadulterated with nameless fear, utterly blessed. Sure we worry, but this stuff is easy compared with the constant dread of the great unknown, the potential depth of that well of loss.
We talked about how we don't mind that this is our first night without her, 6+ months after her birth. How watching her grow and develop is like the greatest cultural or historical site, like Angkor Wat without the biting monkeys, Rajasthan without the runs.
Mind you, we can't wait to get her with us to Thailand or Mexico or even Europe (let's not start with India), but this period of our lives is a Big Trip of its own, sans the antimalarials but with all the thrills and a whole lot more laughter.
