She's Making Me DIZZY!

My head is spinning. Like a whirlpool, it never ends…

No, I didn’t just twirl around and around in circles, or get off a killer rollercoaster.

It’s my daughter. She’s a whirlwind. She talks about 286 different topics in a matter of minutes, and it is SO hard to keep up with her.

Here’s a transcription of a few minutes of “conversation” we had yesterday, on our way home from daycare. I put conversation in quotation marks because truly it is just Emmy talking, with me TRYING (in vain) to interject.

EM: OHHHH! There’s a clock, MAMA!

ME: Yes, there..

EM (interrupting): It’s RAINING outside!

(without skipping a beat) I don’t want to get poop in my eye.

ME: You don’t want

EM (interrupting): Do you have a lollipop, Mama?

ME: Yes, I do, but why did you say

EM (interrupting): I’m a dancing dancing princess.

Look out the window. Do you see something scary?

The trees are SCARY! BAAAAAAAAAAH!

ME: The trees aren’t scary

EM (interrupting): I am going to say MEOW MEOW.

The trees are going to say MEOW MEOW.

ME: How was your day at school Em? What did you do today?

EM: I do did puzzles. And I said I want a bandaid, too. Is Dada here?

ME: No, Em, Dada

EM (interrupting, talking to her Mickey Mouse doll): Mickey, I got you.

ALAZAM! ALAZAM! ALAZAM! (this is Em’s way of saying “Alacazam!” which is her way of magically making the car windows go up and down)

Those cars don’t have an accident.

Mickey, Mickey, YES YES!

ME: Did you do anyt

EM (interrupting): I love food but I DON’T like hot chocolate. I DOOOOO like hot chocolate.

After that I just gave up on asking questions, and listened to Emmy talk TO her Mickey Mouse doll, and FOR her Mickey Mouse doll. Which is all for the best, because it seems Mickey can keep up with my daughter’s train of thought much better than I can.

The Thing That Comforts Him Most

Sometimes my baby boy gets himself a little worked up. Whether it is because he is tired or hungry or his belly is full of gas, he gets all tied up in knots over it, like the whole world is just falling to pieces. Oren cries, arches his back, kicks his little legs to and fro, tries to scratch his own eyes out with his teeny little fingernails. He can really make quite a scene.

I’m his mama. It’s my job to figure out how to calm him down.

So this is what I do: I lie down, and hold him real close to my body, with his ear directly over my heartbeat and his belly touching my belly. I hold his arms down at his sides, so he can’t continue to injure himself (this is sometimes quite challenging). And I just concentrate on breathing – long, deep breaths.

Oren continues to cry for a few minutes. It seems like he is protesting being held. But then, slowly but surely, my calm becomes my baby’s calm.  He starts quieting down, breathing like a normal person, and the storm begins to subside.

It is such an amazing feeling, knowing that I have the ability to comfort Oren this way.

Last night, while using this method to get my overtired son to fall asleep, I started wondering how long I will be able to provide him with this same sense of comfort.

When he is a toddler, and gets bent out of shape over a lost toy or a cut finger, will I still be able to comfort him this way?

When he is seven years old, and he comes home crying because he got teased at school, will I still be able to calm him, with my arms and my steady breathing?

How about when he is a teenager? When his heart is broken for the first time? Will he still come to me? Will I still have the ability to soothe his head and heart?

And when he is an adult, will I even know when he is panicking? Will he even tell me if he feels like his world is falling apart? Will he understand, even then, that I am his mother, and it is my job to figure out how to calm him down?

I hope so. I hope so. I hope I can be a source of calm and comfort for Oren, for many many years to come.

I Discovered a New Source of Energy!

After running around on the trampoline, Emmy becomes a great source of "clean energy"! Now if only we could figure out a way to somehow hook her up to our house's electrical wiring...