Reading the signals

Considering how much I read about the changes of pregnancy during my pregnancy, it might seem surprising that I have barely cracked a single book about early childhood or parenting. Maybe the sleep deprivation made reading difficult these first few months, but something else tells me that it was also a little resistance. I felt like even when things were going wrong with Elisa (no sleep, fussiness, lack of schedule), that she would eventually reveal herself to me and we could work this baby stuff out just the two of us. No books required. Of course, as more time passed, I began to wonder exactly when this would all start to happen. But even as I waited, I knew there was a solution. It was just taking a really long time to get here. And now it finally feels like it has.

For almost 2 weeks now, Elisa has become an almost predictable baby. It's like life is suddenly normal and we just added a new little person to it. She wakes up sometime between 6am-8am then eats/plays/naps on a roughly 3-hour cycle until sometime between 7pm-9pm and then goes down for the night. Yes, I said for the night. It's been a solid week of 7-10 hours at night and the change is palpable. The screaming, gassy, crazy baby we had one month ago hasn't returned and in her place we have a nice, talkative, sweet little girl who likes to end the night with a little rocking and singing before she passes out on her tummy in her crib. She makes lots of grunts and noises all night long, even sometimes a single cry, but yet she stays sleeping. And when I find her in the morning, she has usually wiggled her way to the top of her crib and turned a good 90 degrees. It's so funny to watch her wake up and start to fuss because she really has no idea how she got there. But as my mom said, I think she's been chasing her thumb across the crib all night and finally caught it.
If you are able to get her out of bed and a bottle in her mouth within a minute, you might avoid the series of cries and pathetic sobs that greet you. But usually, this is not possible. So we bring her into the kitchen to talk to the bears in the drawing my niece Mia made for us while we wait for the formula to heat up. It calms her for a few minutes until she realizes that she hasn't eaten for hours and could really go for more food. Burping her has also become a new challenge because Elisa likes to shove her fingers in her mouth while you are trying to get a nice, gentle burp out. This usually means grabbing her hands away from her repeatedly while she sways and dives from one side of you to the other. If you're really lucky, she'll wipe her foamy mouth all over your cheek while she's doing this. It's kind of like a water ride at an amusement park--lots of wetness all over but some how you're laughing the whole time.

Now I know that just as we've figured out this stage, it will inevitably change. But somehow, just figuring it out and reading Elisa's signals right has become so satisfying. I guess if every baby is different, you really don't need a manual...just a little more time to learn the lingo.