Sadie's now comfortably into her second month of life, and she has become a completely different baby. It's mind-blowing to watch her grow and change every day.
She coos and gurgles, reaches out for our faces with her hands and kicks out her legs when she's excited. She's developing new ways of communicating other than crying -- a well-timed yell lets us know that she's cranky, and if she needs something, she'll test the waters with a little fussing and then pause briefly to see if we come running before breaking out in her usual pained howls. Occasionally she'll begin to cry, then seemingly decide it's not worth the effort and calm herself down without our help.
It all adds up to a baby who, for the first time, is becoming easier to read and understand. We still feel as if she speaks a different language, but we're beginning to decipher that language bit by bit, and she's starting to decipher ours. Now when she cries, I understand the difference between "I'm hungry, feed me!" and "I'm tired but I don't know how to get to sleep." Cries from gas pain are different from cries indicating she's lonely and just wants to be held. I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear her cry and think to myself, "I know what she's crying about. I know how to fix this."
I think that if there were any advice I would give to parents with a brand-new baby, it would be to warn them that the first month is really, incredibly hard -- harder than anyone warns you it will be. Those first thirty days were a complete blur; I barely remember them. Day and night blended together into one long, never-ending quest to figure out what Sadie needed at any given time and to give it to her. Sleep was fleeting. I cleaned obsessively because it was the only part of my life that had any semblance of normalcy.
In comparison, the second month has been a cakewalk -- not because she doesn't still cry and need things and deprive us of sleep, but because it all seems a little less scary and unfamiliar now. She occasionally suffers from gas pains, and those are awful. She screws up her face and turns red and kicks her legs and screams, and there's very little we can do, but it helps to know that they are temporary and the next day she will feel better.
She has been sleeping consistently for longer and longer stretches -- six hours, then seven hours, then six again. She recently discovered that, rather than hating the bath, she actually likes it, turning bathtime into a nightly routine for Sadie and me that we both enjoy. We've learned that she loves being placed on her back on the bed and having us lean over her and make silly faces: she talks back to us, making little noises and blowing raspberries and beaming that big toothless smile.
I feel like we are heading into a new kind of normalcy. While the life we used to have may be long gone, the life we're beginning will have its own routines and rhythms. Soon it will feel as if it's always been that way.
She coos and gurgles, reaches out for our faces with her hands and kicks out her legs when she's excited. She's developing new ways of communicating other than crying -- a well-timed yell lets us know that she's cranky, and if she needs something, she'll test the waters with a little fussing and then pause briefly to see if we come running before breaking out in her usual pained howls. Occasionally she'll begin to cry, then seemingly decide it's not worth the effort and calm herself down without our help.
It all adds up to a baby who, for the first time, is becoming easier to read and understand. We still feel as if she speaks a different language, but we're beginning to decipher that language bit by bit, and she's starting to decipher ours. Now when she cries, I understand the difference between "I'm hungry, feed me!" and "I'm tired but I don't know how to get to sleep." Cries from gas pain are different from cries indicating she's lonely and just wants to be held. I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear her cry and think to myself, "I know what she's crying about. I know how to fix this."
I think that if there were any advice I would give to parents with a brand-new baby, it would be to warn them that the first month is really, incredibly hard -- harder than anyone warns you it will be. Those first thirty days were a complete blur; I barely remember them. Day and night blended together into one long, never-ending quest to figure out what Sadie needed at any given time and to give it to her. Sleep was fleeting. I cleaned obsessively because it was the only part of my life that had any semblance of normalcy.
In comparison, the second month has been a cakewalk -- not because she doesn't still cry and need things and deprive us of sleep, but because it all seems a little less scary and unfamiliar now. She occasionally suffers from gas pains, and those are awful. She screws up her face and turns red and kicks her legs and screams, and there's very little we can do, but it helps to know that they are temporary and the next day she will feel better.
She has been sleeping consistently for longer and longer stretches -- six hours, then seven hours, then six again. She recently discovered that, rather than hating the bath, she actually likes it, turning bathtime into a nightly routine for Sadie and me that we both enjoy. We've learned that she loves being placed on her back on the bed and having us lean over her and make silly faces: she talks back to us, making little noises and blowing raspberries and beaming that big toothless smile.
I feel like we are heading into a new kind of normalcy. While the life we used to have may be long gone, the life we're beginning will have its own routines and rhythms. Soon it will feel as if it's always been that way.
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