I’ve been wanting to go on a walk with Penny, but, of course, it’s only been nice out on the days I have to work. On my days off, it is chilly, raining, or snowing. But, maybe, just maybe, it will be nice out on Tuesday or Wednesday and I can take her on a walk down a path behind our apartment building. We need to get out of the house and do something…

Me and my honeybee

I would often fantasize about what reading to my baby would be like. I imagined that it would be a dream. I’d be able to read to an attentive baby, without interruption. No longer would I need to stop to go pee, or take frequent “breathers” after trying to make my way through sentence after sentence with a baby literally taking my breath away. Although my baby might not understand the whole story at first, I assumed that it would be able to tell when it would be appropriate to gasp based on the shift in my voice and would act accordingly.

After months and months of waiting for the day, my baby finally came. It was a girl and I anticipated the day that she would be alert for a long enough period for me to read to her. After only a week, I though we were both ready for her first book. Out of what seemed to be a mountain of stories, I chose Sleeping Beauty. In my opinion, she was a Sleeping Beauty in every way: she had blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and slept wonderfully for long periods of time.

I laid her down on her stomach for some “tummy time” and opened up the book. I had barely finished reading the title when I felt a gush. My heart sank and at the same time I felt panic. Was I hemorrhaging? What was wrong? I quickly flipped Penny onto her back so she wouldn’t smother herself in the blankets and I rushed to the bathroom. The gush turned out to be not a gush of blood, but the passing of a huge glob of something, roughly the size of my fist. I finished up and cracked open one of my baby books. One of the books offered a possible explanation. It said that doctors sometimes miss some of the placenta: some of it gets left inside. Not completely comforted, but feeling the need to remain calm, I decided I wouldn’t worry about it unless I felt pain or the bleeding grew worse. I put away the baby book and re-opened Sleeping Beauty.

Breathing deeply and staring at me with what seemed to be interest, Penelope listened to me read several pages.

The wicked fairy smiled a terrible smile.

“When the little princess is sixteen, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel – AND SHE WILL DIE”

My sleeping beauty started to whimper. I tried to calm and shush her and told her not to worry, the princess would be okay. Secretly I was excited that she was showing such feeling, I felt that maybe she really was getting into the book. Maybe she wasn’t too young to understand it after all. However, as the whimper grew into sobbing and then a blood-curdling wail, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that there was some outside force greater than the story that was discomforting her. I laid the book down next to me, leaving it open so I wouldn’t lose the page, and I did something only mothers do: I smelled her diaper.

Not noticing anything out of the ordinary, I decided that the problem was the other evil: hunger. I took her into my arms and the bottle’s nipple plunged into her mouth. The formula began to vanish at an astonishing rate before the nipple made its great escape. A gulp passed from Penny’s lips as some of the milk substitute trickled from her lips, quickly to be wiped away by a pink cloth. The dragon was tamed and the story continued.

A couple days old

The story continued with little excitement and nothing too breathtaking. Surprisingly she still had her eyes wide open; something that I found greatly pleasing, even if she wasn’t looking at me or the book half the time. However, her face, which often changed at a drop of a hat from one expression to the next throughout the day, now remained constant. I consoled myself be believing that she wasn’t bored, but merely concentrating on the story and the sounds of the words.

After 39 illustrated pages, the story came to a close.

“My only wish is to marry the princess,” said the prince.

And he did.

The prince and the princess lived happily ever after.

My heart swelled with pride and a tear was in my eye as I saw a smile spread across Penny’s face. I couldn’t believe that a baby only a week old would be so touched by a story. Then she farted and I woke up.

It’s always exciting to see your kids learn new things. But then again, sometimes you find out that they’ve learned things you really wish they hadn’t. This is something I’ve experienced lately.

As Penny’s grown, she’s learned how to roll over, stand on her own, blow kisses, and control me and Dusty. But this past week, she’s learned a new trick: how to rip off her dirty diaper. For the past few weeks she’s been staring at the tabs on her diapers and playing with them, not really doing anything drastic though. But last night, when she woke up screaming, she had done a 180 in her crib, her feet up on her pillow, her nuk flung in a far corner, and her diaper mysteriously off or her butt. She seemed fine, as there weren’t any tears in her eyes, and I was amazed and relieved that somehow all of the piss was contained in the diaper and there wasn’t any on her blanket.

As I put a new diaper on her and fed her, several things ran through my mind. How did she do it? Can she change her own diapers now that she can tell when her diaper’s dirty? What am I going to do if she does this with a shitty diaper?

Luckily there’s an easy fix for the situation: just put a onesie on. Since she’s been sick and has had fevers on and off for the last couple of weeks, she’s only been sporting her diaper. I guess all of this has been a sign that she needs to start wearing clothes again.

My mom took Penny for a few days so that Dusty and I could get a break. Since January, she hasn’t been away from us for more than three hours. Having her gone was definitely hard, but I have to admit it was nice to catch up on sleep, cleaning, and some homework. As soon as I got home Tuesday, after she had already left, we went shopping and picked up some books for her. When we got home, we slept for a while. I only needed a few hours at the time, Dusty needed 13. So, I was bored out of my mind while he slept and I tried to figure out how to occupy my time. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty to do, but everything just seemed so strange and empty without Penny there.

I kept on wondering if she missed us or not. The last three weeks have really been hard as first she had a cold, then an ear infection, and we haven’t seen her healthy in all of this time. Which means we’ve been lucky to see a smile a day. I missed her, I wanted to hold her, and I wanted to know that she did love me.

My worries did prove to be fruitless when I came home from class on Thursday. She was laying in her crib, so I was only going to give her a kiss and look at her so that se could get some sleep. But of course, she woke up as soon as I entered the room. But it was different than what would have happened at any other time in the three weeks previous, she was smiling. Not just smiling, beaming! She was squirming all over and giggling, and I could tell that she was happy to see me. Her reaction and proof of her love was all that a mother could ask for.

It’s insane the stuff that people come up with for babies. I recently found a “taggies” book at Target for Penelope and it’s quickly found a place in her heart. It was “My first Taggies Book: Who do you see?” It’s wonderful because it is cloth so she can suck on it if she wants to. Also it has a mirror on the front cover so that she can check herself out. It’s simple pages are also nice as they contain a picture of an animal (some have tags sewn on as limbs) and say what the animal is, nothing more. 

It’s fun to make the animal sounds (she particularly likes quacks and bzzzzzzs). I would definitely recommend this to any parent with a baby at home. And guess what else?! They have a whole collection of taggy books, blankets, dolls, and toys!

Apparently a couple of moms realized that “hey, babies like tags!” And decided to market their idea.