Faith's Personality
Faith is sleeping on my chest. I have a red fleece jacket that I wear, stick her in it with me and zip her up. I wear it often when she is crying at night time to help her get to sleep, or whenever she wants to be held and I want to get some things done. I can fold laundry with her like this, type, or do almost anything. :) It's just as if I have put on a bit of weight. She sleeps very soundly held so tight to my chest.
I'm no expert on the personalities of babies. I certainly did not study the personalities of my little brothers, but Faith does have some characteristics that I find distinctive.
For one thing, she likes to be held close. She likes to be embraced the way a woman embraces her and prefers women over men for that reason. Naturally, she prefers me over anyone but she takes well to her natural grandmothers as well as her many grandmothers from church, her midwife, and her Barbara.
She's is very playful and talkative, especially in the morning. She and I have long discussions which include a lot of silent gazing into each other's eyes.
She loves to bathe with me. From the beginning, the bath did not scare her.
When Faith came into this world she struck me from the beginning as being comfortable in her surroundings. It was as if she had been here before. She cried very little, mostly only mildly complained with little grunts. She cries now. I think she started crying during our trip to Florida in early December. Our schedule was thrown off and for once, she was not the center of my attention.
She does insist on my attention and having my full, undivided attention. When she speaks with me she wants me to look her in the eyes. She does not like to be ignored while I speak with others. She is not fooled by my pretending to pay her attention while I do speak with others.
For weeks, she has been turning down her bottom lip when I have offended her in some way. The week after she and I returned from FL, she was making little upset grunts and I mimicked her. I was shocked at her reaction. Wide-eyed at the shock of my betrayal, she stared at me for a bit then she turned down her lip and let out a terrible wail the likes of which I had never heard and have not heard since. I had truly hurt her feelings. I felt so terrible. I could not have imagined that the limbic system of a young baby was developed to the point where she could get her feelings hurt. Of course, I consoled her immediately and resolved to be more careful in the future. I think she knows this and since then, the lip turning has been more frequent. :) I hope she does not continue this in the future, otherwise, I feel that she will have me successfully manipulated. I simply can not bear to see that little lip turn down.
She controls her environment in a startling way. She can not sit up yet but she makes great effort to do so and will let you know to sit her up if you are holding her. She has been doing this for some time and the midwife remarked on it yesterday. She has quite a strong determination as she attempts to sit up.
She has been rolling since she was born. This surprised the pediatrician....If we shall flatter her to call her that.
She is a nurse practitioner and I do not give her the credit of being a nurse because she knows so little and is so young that there is no way she ever practiced as a nurse before she took on the authority of a NP. She is the only one who will see Faith as we have been turned down from the one ped office in town. (That is another story for another day. Unfortunately, the medical field does not value the opinions nor choices of parents, even those with medical training, and Faith is, in fact, property of the state, not of God nor of I) So I have no choice but to take her to the peds office on base despite my lack of faith in the woman's knowledge or skill. She and I have prideful little power struggles. Last time I was there, I took Faith because I had been lazy in the treatment of her thrush and wanted some Nystatin as the thrush was worsening. I told the NP that she had a yeast infection. The NP corrected me and told me it was called thrush. (Twas a battle of pride here.. ) Then the NP left the room to discover how to treat this VERY BASIC and common infection. She came back and educated me that it is actually a yeast infection (huh?) and that Nystatin is the proper treatment. Duh. She asked me if I wanted something to treat my nipples and possible diaper rash and I told her no. I would treat myself with vinegar and I have coconut oil for the diaper rash. Somehow she managed to acknowledge that the diaper rash could come with a bad case of oral thrush but did not acknowledge that Faith could have the yeast infection all the way down her digestive tract???? I learned that in nursing school and I believe it. That is why I wanted Faith to have the medication because I did not know if it would be harmful to her system to drink vinegar. So I went home, realized how prideful I had been in the peds office and repented. Then I asked God for wisdom and treated Faith with the Nystatin until it was used up. She still had the infection so I began to give her probiotics and continued the vinegar treatment for her tongue and coconut oil for the slight redness at her anus. Coconut oil is antibacterial and anti-fungal. Yeast is a fungus. The condition has cleared up well. Praise God.
I'm no expert on the personalities of babies. I certainly did not study the personalities of my little brothers, but Faith does have some characteristics that I find distinctive.
For one thing, she likes to be held close. She likes to be embraced the way a woman embraces her and prefers women over men for that reason. Naturally, she prefers me over anyone but she takes well to her natural grandmothers as well as her many grandmothers from church, her midwife, and her Barbara.
She's is very playful and talkative, especially in the morning. She and I have long discussions which include a lot of silent gazing into each other's eyes.
She loves to bathe with me. From the beginning, the bath did not scare her.
When Faith came into this world she struck me from the beginning as being comfortable in her surroundings. It was as if she had been here before. She cried very little, mostly only mildly complained with little grunts. She cries now. I think she started crying during our trip to Florida in early December. Our schedule was thrown off and for once, she was not the center of my attention.
She does insist on my attention and having my full, undivided attention. When she speaks with me she wants me to look her in the eyes. She does not like to be ignored while I speak with others. She is not fooled by my pretending to pay her attention while I do speak with others.
For weeks, she has been turning down her bottom lip when I have offended her in some way. The week after she and I returned from FL, she was making little upset grunts and I mimicked her. I was shocked at her reaction. Wide-eyed at the shock of my betrayal, she stared at me for a bit then she turned down her lip and let out a terrible wail the likes of which I had never heard and have not heard since. I had truly hurt her feelings. I felt so terrible. I could not have imagined that the limbic system of a young baby was developed to the point where she could get her feelings hurt. Of course, I consoled her immediately and resolved to be more careful in the future. I think she knows this and since then, the lip turning has been more frequent. :) I hope she does not continue this in the future, otherwise, I feel that she will have me successfully manipulated. I simply can not bear to see that little lip turn down.
She controls her environment in a startling way. She can not sit up yet but she makes great effort to do so and will let you know to sit her up if you are holding her. She has been doing this for some time and the midwife remarked on it yesterday. She has quite a strong determination as she attempts to sit up.
She has been rolling since she was born. This surprised the pediatrician....If we shall flatter her to call her that.
She is a nurse practitioner and I do not give her the credit of being a nurse because she knows so little and is so young that there is no way she ever practiced as a nurse before she took on the authority of a NP. She is the only one who will see Faith as we have been turned down from the one ped office in town. (That is another story for another day. Unfortunately, the medical field does not value the opinions nor choices of parents, even those with medical training, and Faith is, in fact, property of the state, not of God nor of I) So I have no choice but to take her to the peds office on base despite my lack of faith in the woman's knowledge or skill. She and I have prideful little power struggles. Last time I was there, I took Faith because I had been lazy in the treatment of her thrush and wanted some Nystatin as the thrush was worsening. I told the NP that she had a yeast infection. The NP corrected me and told me it was called thrush. (Twas a battle of pride here.. ) Then the NP left the room to discover how to treat this VERY BASIC and common infection. She came back and educated me that it is actually a yeast infection (huh?) and that Nystatin is the proper treatment. Duh. She asked me if I wanted something to treat my nipples and possible diaper rash and I told her no. I would treat myself with vinegar and I have coconut oil for the diaper rash. Somehow she managed to acknowledge that the diaper rash could come with a bad case of oral thrush but did not acknowledge that Faith could have the yeast infection all the way down her digestive tract???? I learned that in nursing school and I believe it. That is why I wanted Faith to have the medication because I did not know if it would be harmful to her system to drink vinegar. So I went home, realized how prideful I had been in the peds office and repented. Then I asked God for wisdom and treated Faith with the Nystatin until it was used up. She still had the infection so I began to give her probiotics and continued the vinegar treatment for her tongue and coconut oil for the slight redness at her anus. Coconut oil is antibacterial and anti-fungal. Yeast is a fungus. The condition has cleared up well. Praise God.