Philosophical Monday: Enjoy Them Now

One of the more unsettling things that strangers have said to me while out with Betty is, “Oh, what a great age. Enjoy them now.” What a strange thing to say, I thought. Why do people keep on entreating me to enjoy Betty now? What happens later?

Meanwhile, the Jaws theme is playing ominously in the background.

Eventually, I chalked it up to people just really, really liking newborns. Don’t get me wrong, newborns are pretty frickin’ cute and also they let you cradle them in your arms for long periods of time and perhaps, most importantly, hand them off to others — unlike Betty, who pretty much decided after four months that no one except her parents and grandmother can hold her for more than a minute w/o her completely freaking out.

However, for the most part I’ve only welcomed the changes in Betty that age has brought. Motherhood became eons more rewarding when Betty started smiling and laughing. Eating out at restaurants has become way easier now that she can sit up in a high chair. And I can’t tell you how beyond thrilled I am that Betty can now entertain herself with toys and other play for anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes ( usually more towards the 20 minute side).

But most of all, Betty’s sleep schedule has only gotten better and better with age. After Thanksgiving, I began planning my day around her three daytime naps and her 10 to 12 hours of night time sleep. I couldn’t see what all these strangers were talking about.

Then Betty learned to sit up. This new skill was awesome at first. It meant I could set her on the floor and do things like put things away with both hands or run her night time bath with two hands or feed our dog Tulip with two glorious hands (if it sounds like I really missed doing things with two hands, that’s because I did). I couldn’t have been happier about this latest development.

But this happiness was all before Betty began sitting up in her crib. You see, when I used to put her down for naps or bed time, she had few tools available to her to protest going down. She’d whine a little, but usually drop off within five minutes in a flurry of self-soothing thumbsucking.

But as of Thursday, if she isn’t beyond exhausted or if she’s even a little bit hungry, she’s taken to sitting up and crawling backwards (she hasn’t figured out forward yet) around the crib. Then she cries with frustration when she gets bored or the crib’s dimensions prove to be too confining for her desired travels. In other words she’s begun. talking back.

And so it begins. I realized today that not only were we going to have to lower the crib, so that she doesn’t use the sides to practice her latest hobby — trying to stand up — she’s also probably going to stop taking three naps a day and cycle down to two. Also, we’re going to have to retrain her to go to bed at night, even when she doesn’t feel like it.

I still maintain that I enjoy the older version of Betty way more than the newborn version of Betty, but I must admit that I do now get what those stranger were trying to say to me. Because from here on in the talking back will only get worse — especially when she actually learns to talk.