Multi-tasking

Moms are famous for multi-tasking; it's practically a cliche. I think I am being initiated into the art of multi-tasking, and to brag for a moment, I am getting good at it. Yesterday, I was able to walk around with Sadie while breastfeeding. Yes, nursing my 3-week old daughter while moving both of us from the first floor to the second floor. All me. Kind of creepy, but when time and expediency matters, I let myself be as creepy as I need to be.

And, right now. Sadie is sprawled out on my lap and I am typing away. I can Facebook and mother at the same time. I can take a phone call while nursing. It's the little things in life.

Today is Sadie's three-week birthday. Three weeks ago today I was itching like a flea-infested dog because the post-op drugs had the side effect of making every inch of my swollen body tingle and demand a good old fashioned scratching. How lucky for my hospital visitors to see that show! I believe the last of our visitors were leaving right about this time and Jeff and I were settling in to our first night with Sadie. How how good you have it when you are in the hospital with 24-hour care! I can hardly believe that was only three weeks ago! Sadie's little cheeks are getting fuller and she can sleep for pretty long stretches of time, which makes everyone very happy. My nerves still jangle when she's crying and I can't tell why. I feel guilty for wanting it to stop, but it would be sort of cruel if I wanted my baby to cry all day, so I guess it's natural that I want my baby not to cry.

My favorite thing she does is wake up from her long stretches of sleep. She has a fairly elaborate method of waking up, that includes stretching out her arms and her legs over and over again. She makes the same faces each time: first she starts with a general yawn, and then she makes different faces with her lips, including this one face where her lips form a perfect little "O" as if she is trying to blow smoke rings. I am so in love with those little lips I can hardly keep myself from gobbling her up when I see her little O rings!

We have done a little research on babies and discovered some interesting information about how they process information that comes at them all day long. Turns out that babies are quite sensitive to emotional energy around them because they do not yet filter any information out. Because they lack filters, they absorb or take in everything going on at once. As adults, we can screen, filter, or ignore certain dynamics or people or energy fields. Babies can't. I think of the prospect of NOT being able to filter out certain aspects of the environment and I get overwhelmed and want to shut down and cry too. Poor little thing. Makes me think twice about where I will take her in the upcoming days and how I will respond to her reactions.

We also learned that when babies get overstimulated they cry in order to protect themselves and reduce the interactions. I do notice that when Sadie is crying heartily there is not much I can do to "reach" her-- the research I read said that's the point: She's trying to make herself unavailable until she can get comfortable or reduce the stimulus coming at her. Well, that's one possible explanation so long as I also rule out a loaded diaper or the ubiquitous gassy stomach possibility.

I find all the information about babies very fascinating. I mostly wonder how the hell anyone purports to know what is going on in babies' minds. I sure can't read Sadie's mind, though it's not for lack of trying. I like the explanations I have heard and they engender more compassion and empathy for the experience of being new on the planet, so there is no harm in just embracing it for now. I also wish I had gotten a Ph.D in early childhood development before having a child so that I would have more knowlege about what is happening. And, as always, I think that having more knowledge would give me more control. You would think that having an newbornn would disabuse me of that fallacy once and for all, but I cling tenaciously to the idea that if only I knew more, I could control this.

Sadie will have the last laugh-- there's no doubt about that!