Freak-Outs and Contentment

Do you ever have those freak-out moments about your child? Oh no! She's not ______ing yet, like her sisters/friends/cousins are!

I think because Zoë was my first, I just didn't know what to expect. Megan I had fewer worries about, knowing that siblings were different. With Miranda, I was freaked out that she wasn't going to talk as much or as well as her sisters. I need not have worried. Just yesterday she was telling me about the wicked witch that was coming to get her and she was going to throw water on her to make her melt like ice cream. Oh, and she's going to dance with her Prince Derek because she's Princess Genevieve from 12 Dancing Princesses. Uh, my two-and-a-half-year-old is not verbally challenged (in vocabulary, sentence construction, grammar, content, or invention).

So, looking at my fourth child, Smiley 'Nica, I try to remember that she has all the proper developmental milestones in appropriate time frames. Still, I was worrying because she was later rolling over, later sitting up. It doesn't always help to have friends who have babies with birth dates mere weeks (or days!) from 'Nica's.

Still, I was relieved, and very happy, despite my inner cringe, that 'Nica is crawling!










Maybe I needed her to have a slight delay in crawling so I could still enjoy and rejoice in her milestone, instead of just cringing that now she can go where she wants, on her knees, in dirt (yeah, I'm not so good about keeping my floors very clean, but parks are worse), with her face and hands close to paper that she loves to stuff in her little mouth.

The great part about 'Nica crawling? I can set her down and come back later and she'll not have moved hardly at all! I think she is just such a content baby, for the vast majority of the time, that she doesn't feel the need to look elsewhere. Of course, there's the freak-out side of me that then starts to wonder if she'll be lazy and have no self-drive or motivation. But, that's borrowing trouble, and I think with the genetics she's got, she should have plenty of self-motivation and ambition (with plenty of examples from immediate family members).



'Nica is such a fun baby! She's my most cuddly, snugly, smiley, happy baby. Oh, and it's even better when she's sleeping through the night! *sigh* Yes, I have been greatly blessed this week that 'Nica has been sleeping from 9-11 hours, instead of 6-8 (which isn't bad except she'd go to bed at 9 and wake up at 3am, meaning no break for me, especially since I'm in the habit of staying up 'til midnight or later when Travis is out of town). And, as I complain about that 6-8- hour stretch, I need to add the comment that she just nurses and goes back to sleep, not that she's up for the day. I had a friend subtly point that out, and I am SO GRATEFUL that she doesn't decide to stay awake!

Now, if I could just get the big sisters to stay asleep through the night.