Wonder Weeks

I wrote this post over two weeks ago. Thankfully we have made it through her recent developmental phase. I normally skip any posts that rests in drafts for this long, but I thought I would go ahead and post the blog entry for future reference. Wonder Week 26 is right around the corner! Well, technically in Lucy’s case, it will be week number 29 since she was born three weeks early.

Ever since we returned from Florida, Lucy has acted like a different baby. She has been clingy and cranky and does not want to sleep. I chalked it all up to a shift from a lot of attention from both of our families to being cared for by a single mom for four days. (Major props to all the single moms out there. I don’t know how you do it!)

But when things continued to get worse after two weeks, I almost lost it. I called Natalie to check in with Nia’s development. It’s great to know moms with babies about six weeks older than you. Their mind hasn’t been erased yet thanks to what I consider human nature’s way of ensuring further procreation. I was about to cave and give Lucy some rice cereal.

I wanted to wait six months due to allergies and my milk supply issue, but I couldn’t figure out what else could be wrong. Natalie assured me that you build up from a teaspoon to a quarter of a cup over weeks. So this is not really that drastic of a shift. Fine, no biggie. I planned to take a trip to the store to buy the cereal and baby spoons.

Then I discovered the concept of Wonder Weeks by googling not sleeping 21 weeks. There in seemed to lie the answer to my question. Lucy is in the middle of a developmental leap. This blog described her to a T. She has been cranky, clingy and even scared of others for the first time. She had also stopped talking on the phone, just looking at it instead. Henry even agreed that these symptoms were on target. He looked back at previous stages to see if they matched up, as well. Appears so.

Whew. That was a relief. Some of the moms on the message boards said that they had introduced solids, but it hadn’t helped. Their babies were still having trouble sleeping. So I reviewed the list of what I could try to help her with this developmental stage and decides to wait a few days on the rice cereal.

Just having some sense of what I can do helped me feel better, which probably helped her feel better. At least I postponed my plans for implementing an earlier bed time in the middle of this phase. And that made everyone in my family much happier. Thank you, internet. I love you.

I gave Lucy her little doll to cuddle while she sleeps. The company named her Mini Yupik. The mini is because there is a bigger Yupik. But I’m guessing Yupik means you pick the sex. I realized this when Henry referred to the doll as a boy, while I always assumed she was a girl. Actually, Yu’pik is an Eskimo from Alaska, according to Wikipedia.

I also bought a yoga mat to help Lucy get better traction. Last week this lap quilt and her activity mat would wind up in a wad underneath her. And boy, was she mad.

I was about to buy a large activity mat for kids until I realized a yoga mat would do the same trick. And I could buy one right around the corner at City Sports. And MAYBE one day I’ll really take up yoga. So it will have a life beyond Lucy learning to crawl. If not, the packaging promised that it will breakdown easily in a landfill. Of course I bought the environmentally friendly one. I had just spent the afternoon at The Green Festival.

I seriously debated which mat to buy. There was a Nike option, this one and a third made out of natural rubber. When I saw that the natural rubber was on clearance, I picked it up planning to buy it. But then I ended up accidentally rubbing my mouth and tasting my hand. Yuck! It was disgusting. It tasted like rubber!

Ummm. Guess what babies do. They lick, chew, and taste everything. This grossness will not go over well. Besides even my kisses on her face will not taste good to me either! Pat, the breast whisperer, advised to taste whatever you put in your babies mouth, including all of those wipes you use to clean off pacifiers and toys. Genius. I would have never thought of that.

So I stood there for a while wondering how I was going to confirm which mat tasted awful. I should have assumed that it was the yoga mat on clearance. But it was also heavy and ugly. So it could have been on clearance for a number of reasons. So I stood there waiting and waiting and waiting until the timing was right. Then I licked it. Just a very teeny touch of my tongue on an interior side of the roll. Ughh… That was it.

I could only imagine all of these young, beautiful professionals going to an early morning yoga session feeling healthy and green only to end up frustrated with this disgusting flavor embedded in their pores all day long.

So I returned to the front of the store on a mission. Did the other two taste bad, too? I had to wait a little longer to taste the mats. But they were in the clear. So I opted for the more environmentally friendly since I assumed Lucy would spend tummy time with her mouth on it.

But I was wrong. The yoga mat gives a lot of traction. A LOT. She couldn’t go anywhere. But when I placed the lap quilt back on top of the mat, it didn’t wad up on the rug. Problem solved. You can see that Lucy, who is wearing her first pair of tights, is on the move in the photo above. I placed her facing her library book and toys in the upper left hand corner. The blanket is still in place. So maybe I could have gone with any yoga mat, but at least I like the color.