Entertaining baby

[mmcirvin]

Just as iayork said, raising a baby means being constantly caught off guard; any pattern in her behavior that we may notice is broken a few days later as she develops. Last week, I think she caught the same horrible respiratory infection that I had and that is going around. In her case it was compounded by the effects of the five shots she got at her two-month doctor appointment. I'm determined to get her a full course of vaccination, but I can understand what disturbs parents about these things; she was pretty miserable that day.

Now her appetite is back up and she seems happier, but as her brain gets brainier her reasons for getting upset become more obscure. When she was a newborn, there were only a few things it could be: food, temperature and gas, mostly. Eventually she started to get bothered by a really full diaper, though it still doesn't seem to be that high on her scale of annoyances. Now, at two and a half months, she can get upset from boredom, loneliness, or being passed to the parent she doesn't prefer at that moment, and she is starting to get generally cranky when she's tired. When she's in a touchy mood, any fleeting change in her surroundings will set her off.

She gets into states of blissed-out infatuation with Mommy, in which even breastfeeding becomes difficult because she keeps pulling away to stare raptly at Sam's face. There are also times when she just seems to have too much energy to hold still in a good position, and starts wiggling and twisting her head around. With me, on the other hand, she goes into massive bouts of happy vocalization, maybe because I sometimes coo and gurgle back to her in baby-ese. I think she likes having the occasional conversation in which she can hold up her end of the dialogue. (Don't worry, I'm not talking to her that way all the time.)

She's using her hands more. She hasn't quite got the hang of reaching for objects but she is trying really, really hard to do so, and sometimes gets frustrated. She actually managed to flip the pages of a book yesterday, half by accident. Books with pictures are already fascinating, especially pictures of babies.

Comments

[thette.livejournal.com]

Five shots? That's cruel! Hulda got all her five three month vaccinations in one shot.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I'm envisioning a syringe the size of the baby...

[thette.livejournal.com]

Nope, just a few milliliters. Virus particles are small.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I know, but the idea of a huge syringe is amusing despite being unrealistic.

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

That's nice. I wonder why we can't do that here.

As it was, the doctor called in a nurse so they could give Jorie shots from both sides, presumably lessening the torture. I fed her immediately afterwards, which helped some, I think.

[thette.livejournal.com]

You probably have more people who won't go with the vaccination program...

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Almost certainly true, yes: there's a significant anti-vaccination movement here, and I've always suspected that at least part of it is just that it's unnerving to see people stick needles in your baby; it's understandable that there would be a deep-seated intuition that this isn't right.