We spent all day wondering what was the matter with Jane. Was she sick? Was it teething? (It's never teething.) As you know, she is normally very jolly, but not today. The low point came when she woke from her afternoon nap. She assumed her habitual post-sleep attitude of extra sunny good cheer, but could only sustain it for about three minutes before leaning her forehead against me, putting all her weight into it, and dissolving abjectly into pathetic sobs.
In the end it seemed that we had been inadvertently starving her? Oops? In a tricky double twist maneuver, she had a growth spurt first, and second acquired a sudden and unheralded need for twice the calories. Sneaky.
Ah, the deep mysteries of parenting. Truly it takes a devious and subtle mind to unravel that tangled skein. FEED THE BABY, LACKWIT. Oh yes. Sorry about that, sweetheart.
While I'm being a baby bore, I may as well go ahead and tell you about her latest tricks. They are so developmentally appropriate that it makes me laugh. It is like when you have a dream and all the symbolism is embarrassingly transparent. Couldn't you have come up with something a little more obscure? you ask your subconscious, but it can't be bothered, presumably because it is too busy producing all the lyrics to "Common People" today, after you couldn't remember them in a conversation three days ago.
Anyway, it is all about reciprocity at the moment. Trick #1 is to hand us things politely and then wait for us to hand them back. Trick #2 is to clap her hands until we all clap our hands, too, and say "yayyyyy," as you do. My mother was visiting this week and by the end we were all sitting around the dinner table, breaking every three minutes to break into a round of applause.
Maybe that's how Jane got so hungry.
Baby need more pie!
Always changing the rules by bloody growing and stuff, aren't they? The sneaky things. Avocado's a good one for baby stuffing, but you probably know that.
Posted by: Lumpy Badger | 02/14/2011 at 08:52 AM
I really enjoyed this! I went through a brief phase of almost skipping Lev's 2pm-ish bottle. I explained to him that this would not happen if he could just feed himself and he responded with a week of constipation.
Posted by: Adriana | 02/16/2011 at 03:13 PM