Mommy Lessons

So bit by bit I learn more lessons on how to be a mother. I need to read more books I guess but who has time to read?? I think I'm getting ready to move Gulliver into his own room. I've been putting him down for naps in his crib (before he could roll, I was lazy and always just put him down for naps in my bed). He's getting used to sleeping in it. Today, he fell asleep in my arms as I nursed him. This is our usual routine. So I finished catching up on my blogs and then brought him to his room so that he could keep sleeping. He woke up as I put him in the crib. Normally, my inclination would be to say "Oh well, he woke up, and he won't go back to sleep." But this time, I decided that even if he was going to stay awake in his crib, I needed lunch. So I went downstairs and made myself a sandwich. When I came back upstairs, he was sound asleep.

So I got to work and ate my sandwich in front of the computer, where I could hear him in the next room. After a while, I heard his rattles/toys, so I knew he was awake. He started making noises like, "I'm bored" or "get me out of here" or "Hello? Are you there?" but there was just one more thing that I needed to finish up before getting him. By the time I was finished, I listened. Silence. So I snuck into the room, and this is how I found him.


Poor baby boy, but asleep!! As I took these pictures, he woke up again, raised his head, but then I snuck away quietly and he went right back to sleep.

So, lessons learned: 1) Just because he wakes up doesn't mean that nap time is over. 2) Just because he wakes up as I put him into the crib doesn't mean he won't fall back asleep if I just let him.

Here's another thing we're learning about Gulliver. Just because he's a good-natured baby doesn't mean that he's going to be a perfectly patient child. He's still going to be a kid. Murray and I have learned what Gulliver's favorite toy is because it's the ONLY thing that he will cry if you take it away. Get ready for it... I'll give you a hint: It's free, we hate it, and it comes to our house every day. It's JUNK MAIL!! Gulliver loves loves LOVES to sit and rip. He is endlessly fascinated by this process, and like I said, VERY unhappy if we take it away.

And one more thing we learned about Gulliver recently. He really rarely cries, but often he'll cry in the car. Not all the time. Lots of times he's happy to sit and think about the world, or play with his car seat toy, or nap. But other times, like almost every time we drive home from SLC, he cries the whole way. I just have assumed that this is because he's hungry/tired/bored/constrained. But we found out the real reason last week. We were just about to leave SLC when Gulliver started crying. I told Murray I didn't want to listen to it all the way home, so we got off the freeway and pulled into a parking lot. I tried to nurse him in the front seat of the car, but he was still crying---very rare for Gulliver. So Murray said, "Sometimes when you walk and bounce him, he calms down." Murray took him out of the car and Gulliver was instantly happy. We concluded he must be bored, so we decided that I should sit in the back with him and entertain him on the way home. So we got back into the car, and I played with Gulliver for a few minutes but as soon as we got on the freeway, he started crying again. Strange. I decided to try the light. So I turned on the car light and the crying stopped instantly. I turned it off, and it started instantly. It seems that Gulliver just doesn't like being in the dark in the back of the car. So we drove home with the light on.

It's interesting learning all of this. I guess I just assume that once you're a mother, you're magically supposed to know everything about your child, and I assume that every other woman knows. But I guess we're all just learning as we go!