when does a baby become a toddler?

Anastasia has done so many new things in the past few months that it's hard to keep up. She's really turning from a baby into a toddler now, and it seems like every day she does a new trick.

The first big thing was over Christmas, when she started to really eat solid food. Of course we've been giving her food since she was six months old, but she never had much interest in it. She would pick it up, play with it, put it in her mouth, and spit it on the floor. I used to joke that I could tell how much she'd eaten--or hadn't eaten--by looking at the floor.

But on our trip to Virginia for Christmas, we stopped at Panera Bread for lunch, and I was enjoying my chicken noodle soup in a bread bowl so much that I decided to let her try a little of the bread. Up until then I'd been very cautious about what I'd given her--only whole foods with no added salt or sugar, no processed foods, etc.--but I figured she probably wouldn't eat it anyway. So I was completely surprised, and rather nonplussed, when she immediately swallowed the bit of soup-soaked bread I offered her and looked for more. She ended up eating quite a bit of it. Which just goes to show you that if you want to raise a child on healthy food in our society, you can never relax your guard. Not even for a second. The first time you offer them something processed and salty or sugary, it's all over.

Then, of course, while we were in Virginia she discovered Cheerios. My sister-in-law, Heidi, was feeding her daughter Olivia (who's the same age as Anastasia) Cheerios and other Gerber finger foods. Anastasia found some on the floor, and it was all over. Now she's decided that animal cookies will cure pretty much anything, and Cheerios are a blast. Meat, however, is one of her favorite foods. Especially if it's marinated in a nice tasty sauce.

But food isn't the only thing that's changing. She's working hard on walking, which I guess is the official changeover from babyhood to toddlerhood. She started pulling up on the furniture somewhere around ten months, and it seemed like no time at all before she started cruising and moving around while holding onto something. Next her favorite activity became walking while holding on to Mommy's fingers. She insisted on holding a finger in each hand, and then she could walk anywhere with great pride--and even run fast enough to make her breathe hard. Just a few days ago, Daddy convinced her that she could actually walk while holding on to only one hand, and now she's very proud of the trick: she stops to giggle and shriek with pride every few steps.

But the funniest new development, and the one that most makes me see how close toddlerhood really looms, is the attitude change. Anastasia has always been a high-strung baby who wanted exactly what she wanted and wouldn't put up with anything else. But already it seems to have multiplied tenfold. Recently she was having pain from molars coming in, and whenever she didn't get something that she wanted (usually something like crawling outside, which we would prevent by shutting the door), she would stop, put her hand to her jaw with a pathetic look, and scream at the top of her lungs. Her message was clear: "But I NEED that! I NEED it! Because my TEETH hurt!"

And in the past few days, she's started an entirely different type of scream. She used to scream like, well, a baby: it was a wail, a cry, a vocalization with many variations that all were clearly communicative. Now she's discovered a new type of cry: the mad scream. It happens when she doesn't like what's going on, when she doesn't get her way, and it's unmistakable. It's a long, drawn-out, guttural cry, like a cross between a scream and a growl. It says something entirely new, and it says it very clearly: "No! Mine! I want! Now!"

Yes, toddlerhood is definitely coming up far too fast.

nine month well visit

On November 26, Anastasia went to the pediatrician for her nine-month visit. I do feel silly sometimes making these visits when I know perfectly well that she's not only well but intelligent, healthy, bright, and well above average. However, it's always nice to get outside confirmation of these things.

Anyway, she was 17.6 lbs, which is 30th percentile for her age; 28 inches tall (67%); and her head was 17.9 inches around (88%). She's already doing pretty much all the milestones from the 6 to 12 month handout the pediatrician gave me: sitting alone, reaching for things she wants, transferring objects between hands, crawling well, pulling herself to standing (not well yet, but that's a 12-month milestone), making noises to show her displeasure or satisfaction (this she does vehemently and constantly), looking for toys or balls that fall out of sight, becoming distressed if a toy is taken away (boy, does she ever!), responding to her name and recognizing our names, pushing toys away when she doesn't want them, playing patty cake, dancing and bouncing to music, and clapping her hands. Some people might disagree whether she's said her first word, but she regularly looks at me and says "Mama" when she wants me...and if that's not talking, I don't know what is. And, of course, she certainly "shows mild to severe anxiety at separation from parent." Make that, "screams in protest at the sight of Mommy's back, even if Mommy is just picking up toys or something and not actually leaving the room." But I don't mind. She has every right to insist on my presence. It won't be long before she'll be all too eager to get away from me. Sigh.

The one thing she hasn't done on the list is wave goodbye. Probably because I've never tried to teach that to her. Yet.

Although, on second thought, I've never tried to teach her any of these things.

When I read that she should "crawl well" by twelve months, I was curious whether her current method of motion qualified as "crawling well," so I asked the pediatrician and put Anastasia on the floor to demonstrate. Naturally, as soon as I put her down, she immediately began crawling away from me, eager to explore a new floor.

"Yes," the pediatrician said patiently, already tired of my unending exclamations about how advanced Anastasia is in every way, "she's definitely crawling."

According to the handout, we do have some exciting new developments to look forward to:

She might try to talk to herself in the mirror. She hasn't done that yet. Then again, she doesn't try to talk to other babies, either...just smiles and reaches for them, which is what she does to her image, too.

She might start offering toys or object to others but want them to be returned. So cute. Her friend Jubilant, who's six months older, does this to me in church all the time, and it never fails to crack me up. I can't wait till Anastasia is doing this one.

Ah. So fun to watch the changes--she really is different every day now. Not long ago she crawled away from me for the first time--it gave me quite a turn. I was in the bathroom (of course; wouldn't that be the way?), and I put her on the floor of the bathroom while I peed--which I always do. But this time, instead of sitting there happily looking for pieces of fuzz to eat as she usually does, Anastasia was no sooner on the floor than she was happily crawling away--out the bathroom door. I was too flabbergasted to be able to get off the toilet quickly.

Luckily Matt was home, so I called for him to come keep an eye on her while I caught up.

But I can understand all the cliches now. It really does seem like yesterday that she couldn't even control her arms, and now she's crawling away from me. Next thing I know she'll be driving and moving out of the house.

At least I'll always have the satisfaction of knowing I took advantage of every moment she did want to be with me and enjoyed it...

Anastasia crawled!

Anastasia crawled this morning. Really crawled on her hands and knees, not belly-scootched like she's been doing for a while. We were in the bathroom. I was going to take a shower, so I put her on the floor with a bunch of toys while I got ready. As usual, when I set her down, she landed on her hands and knees and stayed there for a minute. Usually she rocks that way for a while and then lowers herself to her belly and moves around that way. But today, she sat there very still and serious for a minute, and then she crawled: first one hand, then one knee, and then the other hand, then the other knee. She went about four steps before she lowered herself to her belly to play with a toy. But after weeks of watching her get frustrated as she tried to do this, I was very impressed!

Now, of course, she already seems to have forgotten how she did it, because when she tried again later, she got frustrated again. But of course it's only a matter of time--and a very short time, it looks like--before she's moving all over the place too fast to keep up with. My easy days of babywatching are over. Time to get ready to run after her all over the house.

Other tricks she's learned recently:

* Clapping. Mary and I both occasionally have clapped for her when she did something cool, but she suddenly started imitating it without really much prompting. Now she does it on cue. "Clap your hands!" I'll say, and usually she'll respond by clapping them and giggling, a big grin on her face. Adorable.

* Peek-a-boo. I definitely didn't teach her this, and we only played it a couple of times before she figured it out. I really don't think I'd done it more than once or twice--you know, the whole thing where I put a blanket on her head and say, "Where's Anastasia?" and then whip it off with a triumphant, "There she is!" But after we'd done this a few times, Anastasia started doing it herself. The first time, she used a book. She put it on her head like a hat and looked at me expectantly, with an unmistakable "I'm-playing-a-game-now!" face.

"Where's Anastasia?" I asked agreeably, although I didn't really think she was going to do it. But sure enough, she waited just a minute--with an impressive sense of comedic timing--before whipping the book off her head and grinning at me. "There she is!"

She really is at the best age now. I think I say that all the time, but it's true what a neighbor told me: she just keeps getting better.

I'm happy to be a mom

The other day I read an article in The Atlantic Monthly that talked about happiness. It claimed that although people say their children make them happy, having them record their level of happiness at specific moments throughout the day shows that parenting actually isn't their favorite activity--it ranks just above housework. That annoyed me. Maybe most people don't like parenting, I thought, but I certainly do.

But when I thought about it more, I had to admit that parenting is hard work. There's a reason why I look forward to Matt coming home every night so I can let him play with Anastasia while I do something else. There's a reason why I'm always happy when our neighbor Mary comes over to play with the baby. And although I enjoy playing with her tremendously, I like getting breaks, too. It's hard to hardly ever be able to do anything for yourself.

And yet, I think there must be something more to happiness than mere day-to-day moments. Even if your perceived level of enjoyment of daily activities is lower while you're taking care of children, there is another level at which they make us much, much happier. There must be, or people wouldn't keep wanting them. Yesterday my sister called me in a bad mood. "I feel generally dissatisfied with life," she said. I was surprised by my own reaction, because of course I knew what she was talking about. Everyone feels generally dissatisfied with life sometimes, right? And yet when she said it, my reaction was more one of commiseration than identification. Oh yes, I thought. I remember what that feels like. When did I last feel that way? Of course. It was when I was pregnant.

But I haven't felt a moment of it since Anastasia was born.

Does that mean I'll live happily ever after? Not necessarily. I suppose there might come a time in my life when I will again feel a vague, general discontent with my life. But right now, I can't imagine ever feeling that again. Yes, my day-to-day life might be hard or boring or filled with uninteresting activities like figuring out how to get poop stains off my jeans. But the big picture of my life is changed irrevocably toward happiness. I am, as Chesterton says, "at peace with the universe," even if I might be "at war with the world."

There are plenty of explanations for why having children would give people such a deep overall satisfaction with life, even in the face of daily irritations. The easiest explanation is the scientific one: we are biologically designed to reproduce, so having accomplished that makes us feel that we've satisfied a lifelong need. And maybe that is why.

Or maybe it's that Anastasia is such a perfect, lovely, beautiful, and blessed being that her mere presence in my life is a light that illumines everything it touches, giving me an overriding sense of peace, fulfillment, and joy.

Yeah, that second one is definitely it.

things I regret

Not long ago I was reflecting on becoming a parent. And I surprised myself, because as I thought about it, I realized that there are very few, if any, things that I regret so far in the way that I've parented Anastasia. Of course I know that nobody can be a perfect mom. But so far, I feel like we've done pretty well.

But in the last few days, I've noticed a few mistakes I think I've made. I'm writing them here so I don't forget them, so I can do even better in the future--and for our next baby, if and when we have one.

So here are a few of the things I'll change in the future:

I wish I'd never started putting Anastasia down to sleep. In the past week I've been reading The Continuum Concept and Our Babies, Ourselves, and they made me realize that babies really are meant to be held and nursed all the time, at least until they're able to walk. Did you know that the !Kung San nurse their babies, on average, every thirteen minutes? Amazing. They carry them all the time in slings on their hips, and the babies just help themselves to milk whenever they want it. And Gusii babies are within five feet of someone more than 60% of the time, waking or sleeping, until they're over a year old. Usually they're in someone's lap or arms, or tied to someone's back. I was carrying Anastasia all the time, awake or asleep, up through three months, and most the time until four or five months. But then I started putting her down once she was asleep. It made it easier for me to do things--but she would cry when she woke up, and she didn't sleep as long. I thought she was getting too heavy to wear for naps, but that's silly. If all those tribal women can do it, well, so can I. So yesterday I put her in the sling to nap instead of swaddling her and putting her in her hammock, and we were both so much happier. She slept much longer, and she woke happy instead of crying. And I realized how much I missed having her close while she naps. So I'm back to wearing her all the time--right this minute, she's nestled in the sling, next to my heart, fast asleep.

I wish I'd started EC when she was born instead of when she was two weeks old. I keep telling myself that it couldn't have made too much of a difference in her signaling, and she's probably just one of those babies who won't signal much until she starts to become more verbal and communicative. But I wish I'd tried earlier. I think it might have made me better at knowing when she needs to go. Next time, I'll catch the meconium.

I wish I'd tried not eating dairy earlier. I don't think I could have done that differently, because I had no idea what to try. But it helped so much, I wish I'd figured it out earlier. I ate a cupcake this weekend to see what would happen (there's dairy in the icing), and Anastasia got sick from it yesterday. I can't believe I allowed her to be miserable like that for so long before I figured out what was bothering her. Next time, if my baby has problems, I'll go on an immediate total elimination diet before I allow it to suffer.

That's really all I can think of, though, so I guess I feel like I'm doing a lot of things right.

babies love to be carried

I had a sweet experience today at the grocery store. I was carrying Anastasia on my back (in my new Beco Butterfly). She was getting tired, but she's starting to like being on my back, and she was sitting there quietly while I shopped. A lady who worked at the supermarket saw me and asked, "Where are you from?"

Confused, I answered, "Atlanta."

"Oh, I didn't know people carried their babies on their backs like that here!" She was evidently delighted. "In my country, we all carry babies like that."

"Where are you from?" I asked her.

"Ethiopia," she said.

Well, of course everyone carries babies on their backs there! They do it everywhere outside of the western world. But, as I told my supermarket friend, we westerners are slowly catching up to some of the wisdom that a lot of cultures never lost. "Babies like to be carried," I said, reaching around to pat Anastasia, and my new friend smiled and nodded.

"Aaah," said Anastasia, which was her way of agreeing with us.

eight hours of sleep!?!

Last night Anastasia slept for eight hours straight. Actually eight and a half, from ten-thirty till seven. I don't think she's ever slept longer than five hours before, and that somewhat rarely, although I can't really be sure...now that she's big enough to pull my boob into her mouth by herself, I think I've slept through quite a few of her night wakings. Gotta love having her sleep in bed with me.

So I ought to have felt wonderful today after such a long sleep, but of course I didn't sleep for eight hours. I didn't go to bed till midnight, and I woke up at five. That's when Anastasia has been waking up for breakfast, until today. I did go back to sleep until seven, but, well, it's not the same as straight hours of sleep.

Or is it that I'm more tired now because I got enough rest to feel how tired I've been?

The funniest part is that I don't even mind her night wakings any more...in fact, I kind of missed them this morning. I lay awake for a while at five this morning hoping she would wake up. I wasn't about to wake her, of course, or move or breathe loudly in a way that might disturb her, but, well, I lay there looking at her, waiting for her to wake. I knew she was going to. But she just sighed and moved her arm a little, and slept on. After a while, I fell asleep too, still expecting her to wake and want to nurse.

I already can tell I'm going to miss all the night nursings as she gradually outgrows them.

Ah, well. Ten to one she'll wake every two hours tonight.