Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

So…normally Kaelie insists on being in my arms for no less than a half hour after I get home from work. But today, she popped right down to chase the cat after only a minute or so! Well that was a sudden change…At least she let me pick her back up again.

Since having a child, I’ve spent a lot more time feeling several conflicting emotions at once, often related to her growing up. Weird because I was never that interested in babies until I got pregnant, and I always pictured my kids at more than 4 or 5 years old (usually closer to 10). But I had a rough time a few months back when she started wanting to occasionally be not in my arms; I was both proud and sad, excited to be heading toward the major reason I wanted kids in the first place, but unwilling to let go of holding my little baby whenever I wanted. I got past that eventually, but I’m still regularly confounded by having both feelings at once. I am not accustomed to complicated emotions.

Speaking of sudden changes, in the last couple of days she’s started to respond in ways that show she understands what we’re saying. A few days ago, she had C’s phone in the car. He asked for it when we got home. She shook her head (she’s shown an understanding of “no” and shaking her head side-to-side for about a week or two) and he offered her a trade: the phone for getting out of the car seat. So she gave him the phone and was happily rescued from the hateful seat.

There was another one yesterday, but I don’t remember at the moment. I’m sure I’ll remember as soon as I put the baby in the car seat to go pick up C in a few minutes. And this morning, when I had on my coat and shoes to go to work, she tried to give me her own jacket. Awww…

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Gonna update more often now…

…I swear. Honest.

I’ve pinned this as an app tab in Firefox…there are a bunch of things I keep wanting to post on Facebook but then I’ll be That Mom who always posts tons of stuff about the baby and nothing about anything else. Granted, my life involves a lot of baby stuff so it’s not surprising. Mostly, though, I want to update here more often because I wish I’d made note here of the milestones as they happened, but all I can do is start doing so now.

At the 6-month appointment, our pediatrician gave us a checklist for the 10th month. But we didn’t have a 10-month appointment, just a 9-month one, so at the 9-month appointment she was behind on the 10-month questionnaire. I refused to worry, telling myself she’d get there by 10 months, and I was right — by July 9th, 10 months old, she was well within the “normal” range on everything but the section that includes talking, and now at 10.5 months she does almost everything on the list…and a couple of things on the 12-month questionnaire. She doesn’t say any words yet, despite my and her father’s best efforts at getting her to say “mama” and “dada”, but I’m not worried. My mom tells me I didn’t really talk much at all until I was 3, and I’ve always been great with language.

It seemed like she didn’t do anything new for a long time. She did “bonk” her forehead to ours if we tilted our head toward her, and would sit up starting around 5-6 months or so, but unless she fell over (something she’d do without crying after the first few times, unless somebody gasped*, she’d stay seated in that spot for a while, until she got bored; then she’d cry. At 8 months she started inchworming around…I have video of that and it is adorable. Around 9? months she started getting to her belly from sitting, so we stopped being able to keep her in one place by sitting her up with a few toys.

We’ve had a whole bunch of milestones just within the last month: sitting up on her own, pulling up to stand, stepping when held by the hands in a standing position, peek-a-boo (on her own, without us making gestures), teething, crawling (finally! I wasn’t expecting her to crawl at all, because we have hardwood floors and her inchworm maneuver has served her just fine thus far), drinking from a regular cup, and now she can almost pick something up from a standing position without sitting down. Teething, crawling, and drinking from a regular cup all happened yesterday — she cut her first tooth, drank from Daddy’s cup, then crawled, then cut her second later on that evening or possibly in the early morning.

I was surprised at how emotional my reaction was. Pride doesn’t seem justified since it’s utterly normal behavior, but I still feel it. I get so excited whenever she does something new; it’s both pain and joy rolled into one. Joy because, obviously, it’s just incredible to watch her grow from a completely helpless newborn into a tiny human with intentions and desires; pain because she’s starting to need me less now that she can move around on her own. Just a little less…but this is the beginning. Now I’m starting to understand all the references I’ve heard over the years to a mother’s pain at her child growing up and away from her. It never occurred to me that I might feel this way. I always pictured myself taking joy in my kids’ abilities to take care of themselves, encouraging them to do everything they can, but now I’m starting to wonder if it might be something I have to force myself to do.

But she’s woken from her nap, so I have to cut this short. I think I’ve put down pretty much everything I want to put down for now, though.

*At my monthly knitting group, I had her seated on the floor while I talked to another mom. She fell over, which I didn’t notice until everyone gasped; she looked around…and then cried — “oh, they made that noise, I guess I’m supposed to be upset!” >_<

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