Who Said I Can't

Amazing what sleep can do with how you feel. Little one has returned to previous sleeping patterns and now everything is falling into place. I get more sleep so I'm more relaxed, baby gets more sleep so she is better rested and much more happy. This in turn gives me more time to rest so I am more eager to entertain baby just for the fun of it. This again makes baby happier and she goes to bed in a pleasant mood and therefore sleeps even better. When one (or both) of us sleep badly, the opposite happens because mother and child keep infecting each other with their stress and bad mood.

It can be a nasty loop when mother and child keep dragging each other's mood down but it can be amazing once the loop becomes positive. At times it's a total giggle-fest over here. Baby giggles - I giggle - baby sees me giggling and giggles again - I think her reaction is adorable and it makes me giggle. And then Erkki curiously asks from the other room, "What the heck are you two doing in there?". For me it's like laughing therapy. Stress just melts away. And it's definitely good for bonding with Siiri.

There are two equilibrium states in the mother-baby dynamics: very good and very bad . The entire thing is very far from being self-sustaining because even a few sleepless nights can shift the balance to the other end of the spectrum and life goes from very good to very bad and there's not much I can do to stop it. It's out of my control. I can't just choose to be in a good mood. The only thing I can do is to hide my stress from the baby so it doesn't affect her and intensify all of my positive emotions. No one has an endless supply of positive emotions and it certainly doesn't help when an unhappy baby uses up all the reserves in a matter of hours. This two-equilibrium pattern makes it especially important to get new positive emotions from outside when baby is teething or otherwise feeling bad.

One problem though - when baby is really unhappy she needs me to be at her side. Yet when baby is upset, I need to take a break more than ever because I need to positive emotions from elsewhere. In my opinion it is best to ignore the short-term emotions and concentrate on our long-term happiness: I'm not going to spend all my days with an unhappy baby because that way she will stay unhappy for a very long time. When there's something bothering Siiri, she MIGHT become restless because she is simply LESS LIKELY to settle for anyone else's company but mine. Except Erkki's. It appears our little girl has already become daddy's little girl. Oh you should have seen her expression when Erkki got home yesterday evening. She got so enthusiastic when she heard his voice from the corridor and when she saw him she stretched out her arm toward him as far as she reached and she was just so happy Erkki's home. She touched Erkki's five o'clock shadow, then my cheek, and back and forth many times. The cutest little creature she is.

Baby Update: I called her "a little girl" but she's really not all that little anymore. A couple of days after turning 5 months old she weighed 8 kg (0.1 kg accuracy). This means she has gained another 700 grams in a month and she's a whole kilo bigger than her age group. She's far from being fat (or big-boned for that matter ). She's just really vigorous and strong. She really seems to be in a hurry to grow up. Perhaps one reason she's so big is that she might end up being over 180 cm tall considering mine and Erkki's height.

Her physical development skyrocketed this week. On Monday, when she had turned 5 months old, we went to see a physical development specialist to make sure she doesn't have any excess muscle tension. Doctor noted that she's very well-developed and we had a short conversation about what she can and can not do. She does push her arms straight and lifts her chest, plays with toys while on her stomach and pulls her trousers from knee height, but she doesn't turn to her stomach on hard surface, she doesn't crawl around her axis, and she doesn't try to put her toes in her mouth yet. Doctor assigned us a few swimming lessons because it's good for nearly all babies.

We got home and I put the baby down to wash the dishes. A moment later she was lying on half her toys on her stomach and trying to hold balance so she doesn't roll back. Wow! Great going, Siiri! Then I changed her diaper and she suddenly discovered some funny little wriggly things at the tip of her feet. What fascinating things, must have a taste! So she was pulling her toes toward her mouth. Even later she was on her stomach on a bed and suddenly started to push her legs straight, so that half her body was in the air. She found a little support under her foot and pushed herself a couple of inches forward. It only happened once but she did it very skillfully. The next evening she was on her stomach on her play carpet and her rattle fell out of her reach to her side. She looked at it seriously, and then moved a little around her axis until almost had it. Basically she did nearly everything that she was unable to do on Monday. She over-heard me and the doctor talking and apparently set out to prove us wrong.

I have a feeling the second tooth won't wait long. A few sleepless nights are ahead but I was happy to get a short break.