Motherhood, Day 14.
Yesterday she registered a toy! It's a sort of mobile my mom gave me, with big cartoony bugs with lots of black and white. Each bug hangs above the next on a cord, and when you pull the bottom bug down they all slowly retract back up while playing a little tune, which is surprisingly tolerable to listen to over and over again. Which is good! I tied it to the back of the glider chair where I nurse her and pulled it down over my shoulder while I held her and she stared at it in fascination. When it stopped she looked at me and then at the mobile in confusion, until I pulled it again. It's incredible to me how much she can communicate to me considering she has no control over her facial expressions, and can't even smile, yet. "Do it again, Mommy!" came across clear as a bell.
Breast feeding's going well, although her lack of physical coordination often frustrates me. Her flailing arms get in the way and she turns her head _away_ from my breast, trying to find it. She latches well, though, and is starting to stay latched for longer and longer. The other day I breastfed her for an hour and a half, switching back and forth between breasts, just to see how long she'd keep at it before she got frustrated. I'm definitely making milk and she's definitely drinking it (spitting it up, spilling it down her chin, etc). I'm seeing the lactation consultant on Monday. I'm supposed to bring her in hungry.
(I love how doctors make these rules for you that don't apply to them ["Rest all the time, don't overdo it, but here's a schedule of three appointments a day you have to be at, all over town." "Pee as soon as you need to, and never hold it in, but make sure you've got a full bladder when you come for your prenatal visits or your ultrasound." "Feed her whenever's she's hungry, but somehow engineer to not feed her for two hours before your appointment..."]. Argh. I'm starting to hate doctors.)
She's sleeping in 5-6 hour blocks and spending 1-2 hours wide awake, which is really exciting. Jason and I are still wrecked, but I'm optimistic we'll be feeling better soon. I just wish there was more I could do with her when she's awake. I make faces and talk to her and pull the mobile, and I can hear the gears turning in her head as she cogitates like mad. It's amazing to me that she's building a context for EVERYTHING. _Nothing_ has context for her.
For example; imagine a dining room chair. Suppose you come across a dining room chair you've never seen before. You know what it is, what it's called (possibly in more than one language). You know its purpose. You can make assumptions about the room you find it in. You can make a probably-accurate guess at how much it weighs, how much weight it can bear, how much pressure in any particular direction will tip it over. How much force would be needed to destroy it. You know what it would look like on its side or upside down. You know what it's made of. You know where wood comes from, and its name and its properties. You have a catalog of other dining room chairs you've seen, throughout your life to compare it to. All this information, and more, is available to you the first time you glance at a dining room chair for a moment. It has _context_. Thousands of connections to the world around it, and to you.
She has _no_ context. The world begins at my breast and slowly, painstakingly, expands from there. Piece by piece, she'll slowly put it together. Connections and context will form, this intense, dense matrix, one strand at a time. It's an incredible process and I feel sort of honoured to be in the position I am to watch it unfold.
Breast feeding's going well, although her lack of physical coordination often frustrates me. Her flailing arms get in the way and she turns her head _away_ from my breast, trying to find it. She latches well, though, and is starting to stay latched for longer and longer. The other day I breastfed her for an hour and a half, switching back and forth between breasts, just to see how long she'd keep at it before she got frustrated. I'm definitely making milk and she's definitely drinking it (spitting it up, spilling it down her chin, etc). I'm seeing the lactation consultant on Monday. I'm supposed to bring her in hungry.
(I love how doctors make these rules for you that don't apply to them ["Rest all the time, don't overdo it, but here's a schedule of three appointments a day you have to be at, all over town." "Pee as soon as you need to, and never hold it in, but make sure you've got a full bladder when you come for your prenatal visits or your ultrasound." "Feed her whenever's she's hungry, but somehow engineer to not feed her for two hours before your appointment..."]. Argh. I'm starting to hate doctors.)
She's sleeping in 5-6 hour blocks and spending 1-2 hours wide awake, which is really exciting. Jason and I are still wrecked, but I'm optimistic we'll be feeling better soon. I just wish there was more I could do with her when she's awake. I make faces and talk to her and pull the mobile, and I can hear the gears turning in her head as she cogitates like mad. It's amazing to me that she's building a context for EVERYTHING. _Nothing_ has context for her.
For example; imagine a dining room chair. Suppose you come across a dining room chair you've never seen before. You know what it is, what it's called (possibly in more than one language). You know its purpose. You can make assumptions about the room you find it in. You can make a probably-accurate guess at how much it weighs, how much weight it can bear, how much pressure in any particular direction will tip it over. How much force would be needed to destroy it. You know what it would look like on its side or upside down. You know what it's made of. You know where wood comes from, and its name and its properties. You have a catalog of other dining room chairs you've seen, throughout your life to compare it to. All this information, and more, is available to you the first time you glance at a dining room chair for a moment. It has _context_. Thousands of connections to the world around it, and to you.
She has _no_ context. The world begins at my breast and slowly, painstakingly, expands from there. Piece by piece, she'll slowly put it together. Connections and context will form, this intense, dense matrix, one strand at a time. It's an incredible process and I feel sort of honoured to be in the position I am to watch it unfold.