Our Little Headbutter

NatureForce's lying in the crook of my arm sleeping, well, like a baby. She's adorable. So far my typing has stirred her, although it's jiggling her head the tiniest bit...

NatureForce is 10 weeks old - maybe 11 weeks old? Yeah, just looked. She's 11 weeks old tonight. Happy birthday, baby!

Lately, she's been getting very strong. She always has preferred to push away from your shoulder when you're holding her, but until she gained neck control you'd always need to hold the back of her neck. Now she's gaining more neck control and she can hold her head up for sustained periods.

The thing is, she has a tendency to jerk around quite a bit. That can be dangerous at times. She's holding her head up, looking around, steady as can be and then jerk, she pitches to the left, right into your nose. Again, she's got her eyes set on something in the distance and then jerk, she pitches forward, right into your shoulder blade. It can be downright dangerous to hold this kid.

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Another developmental milestone: NatureForce has discovered her hands. Most of the time, especially when she's active and flailing her arms and legs about, her hands are clenched into little tight fists. Every once in a while, she'll become very still and bring her little fist up to the side of her head and stare at it like it's the most fascinating thing in the world.

She can now content herself by sucking on her fists when her pacifier has fallen out of her mouth. Sometimes I check on her after she's been asleep for a while, only to find her sucking madly on one of her fists. I wonder how long she's been awake and obviously hungry, wishing that she'd at least cry a little bit before setting about to sucking.

We've also been playing with little Roll-A-Rounds, colorful and texture-ful balls by Fisher-Price. I'll hold it in front of her and shake it a bit or move it from side to side so she can track with her eyes. Well, this past week, she brought her little hand up and made contact with the ball. And not a fist, mind you, an open hand that actually grasped at it. As a parent, you get excited about the small developmental milestones that would not be very impressive to others. This was truly marvelous.

Naptime, anyone?

LittleMum's having a hard time taking naps. Or maybe, what I really mean is I'm having a hard time because she's not taking naps... ? I consistently put her in her room in the afternoon for "sleepy time," and then we hear her for the next several hours playing and singing at the top of her lungs. It's quite hilarious, actually. Sometimes I go in and try to get her back to bed, and at other times I enjoy the concert-through-the-door. She makes up her own stream-of-consciousness songs. Sometimes I shake my head and think, "Where did that come from?"

Naptime is when LittleMum's room gets totally messy because she pulls all her toys and books out. I know, sleeping experts say that the bedroom should be for sleeping, but where do we put her toys, then? The living room? Eventually, we'll get our basement finished and perhaps have a playroom down there. And actually, when LittleMum was a baby we did set up a play area in the living room for her. We put this huge quilt out on the floor and stacked her toys against the back of the couch. I'm sure our family and friends just shook their heads at our design sense. I even immortalized it in a yoga DVD I made for my sisters. There's me, doing yoga against a backdrop of baby toys and LittleMum's high chair facing Baby Einstein on the TV. Seems more like a comedy than an exercise video. I guess it's okay; I mean, I'm sure I won't be marketing my yoga video any time soon.

So, we keep the toys in the bedroom, she gets her alone time and Mommy gets a little break, and we simply have her clean up her toys as an evening activity. No harm done, I guess.

One thing that makes me nuts, though, is that, too often, she poops in her diaper while she's in there. I don't know if she just takes advantage of the privacy (I've heard that toddlers often will make an effort to poop in private as they figure out how their body works), or if she's just on a particular pooping schedule. To try to prevent it, I ask her to go sit on the toilet several times during the morning and hope that she'll go before naptime.

Yeah, potty training has its ups and downs. I hear these stories of moms who potty train their toddlers in one day or one weekend, and I know there are books out there to help us newbies. However, it's a challenge thinking constantly about LittleMum's bodily functions so I can help her figure it all out. I'm a bit too distracted, perhaps.

It's not stressing me out, though. At least, not much. One pediatrician issued this reminder on his website: "I've never met an adult who wasn't potty trained." How do YOU know, Dr.? Maybe there are more diaper-wearing adults than we realize. Seriously, I'm sure we will figure it out before too long. I'm inclined to follow LittleMum's lead on this one. I'll ask her, remind her, celebrate with her and put stickers on the chart when she's successful, and wait for her to decide it's time to wear big girl panties. I hope it's soon, because having LittleMum come out of her bedroom during naptime with a poopy diaper is not so fun - that leads to bathtime instead of naptime. And I'd prefer naptime.

The Story of "Mei"

I've had a few people ask me about the spelling of NatureForce's middle name. There's a story here, so I'll attempt to describe how it all came about.

One Sunday, we had Paul's family over for dinner. As a tradition, we take turns hosting Sunday dinner. As Paul and I were talking about the name NatureForce, someone threw out the name with Mae/May as a possible middle name, and Paul seemed to be okay with it. Paul's mother reminded him that Mae was her mom's middle name, and that NatureForce had some family history connection as well on the Hurd side. I also found out later that NatureForce was a nickname for my namesake and great-grandmother. I asked my mother-in-law how her mother spelled her middle name, and she said that it's "May" on the birth certificate, but Grandma Clark always spelled it "Mae." Okay, so with the family connection confirmed, we put NatureForce's name on our very short list of potential names. See this post for the reason why it was so short.

Some astute readers have seen the reference earlier in my blog about Mei, a character in a Japanese cartoon, My Neighbor Totoro. Why am I familiar with a Japanese cartoon that hasn't really hit it big here in the United States yet (although you'll probably be hearing of it soon; I got word from Amazon that they plan to ship my new English-language (also with the original Japanese), Disney-distributed DVD in March)? I was a missionary for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, back in 1995 and 1996 in the Japan Nagoya Mission. Although I never saw the cartoon itself, Totoro is all over in Japan - talk about merchandising! Here is a stylized picture:














Based on the original:















Although we didn't really name NatureForce partially after Mei, the little girl in pigtails, I asked Paul if we could spell it that way as somewhat of a link to my Japanese history. Also, it turns out that Mei is a common Chinese girl's name... so I thought it would be cool if we could choose a Chinese character for her middle name, just for fun.

My brother, who is fluent in Chinese and is a Chinese medicine practitioner, was a great source for me here; he let me borrow his Chinese dictionary so I could look at the different meanings of the name. We're not really following traditional Chinese naming conventions, because Chinese names often have two parts instead of just one (Mei-Ying, Xiu-Mei, etc., etc.).

The character we chose (above) means "beautiful." Another meaning of Mei, however, is "little sister," which is also appropriate. Bottom line, NatureForce's got an interesting name that I hope she doesn't curse me for when she's older... Paul was a little uncertain (he accused me of being a bit eccentric), but I told him that because he got to choose the name, I wanted to at least spell it the way I wanted. So he gave in.

So that's the story. We call her NatureForce, not with her middle name, but we don't object to others calling her by both names. She's our little beauty. And we love her!

The Mystery of the Blogosphere

I looked at my RSS feed reader today, and saw that there were some new posts on the blogs I had listed. I don't frequent blogs very often, so I had quite a bit to catch up on. One blog that I've found interesting is GeekNurse, a blog by a pediatric critical care nurse in Australia. It mixes interesting technical notes about pediatric nursing with heart-inspiring and heart-rending stories of sick babies and children. Another blog is called The Broken Arms, a blog by an English major who is dealing with roommates, friends getting married, heartbreak, the GRE and graduate school applications.

As I read about the inner workings of these young men's minds and hearts, I wondered how much blogging has replaced true connection with other people. As a society, we have begun to gravitate away from neighbors, family, friends, and gravitate more towards feeling connected to strangers. Is it easier to pour your heart out anonymously for the public to read than it is to share those feelings with those who are close to you? In some ways, perhaps.

I have a post saved in draft form right now, but I'm having a bit of a hard time getting back to it. For now, I'll just post some recent photos of NatureForce and LittleMum. NatureForce is, indeed, smiling! All-gums grins are the best; you can't help but just melt.