The night Elise was born, I'm sure as it is for all new parents, was truly an amazing experience. After everyone was gone from the hospital, and Kelly was resting comfortably, I sat in the rocker with Elise in the hospital nursery. I didn't know much about babies. They had to talk me through how to hold her, to support her head, not too rock to fast, etc. We rocked in the chair for what felt like hours. I'm sure it was only about 30 minutes. At one point, Elise started to cry. Like all newborns it wasn't a faint little whimper, but an all out airing of the lungs! For some reason, I wasn't stressed out about it. Hearing other people's kids cry before this was a definite source of frustration, but my own child crying, not so much. After trying to calm her on my own for several minutes, the nurse came in and asked me if I would like her to take over for me to help calm Elise down. I politely declined. After a few minutes of coaching, without achieving any success, she ask politely again if I would like for her to try. I remember telling her, "No thank you. I'm never going to get this night back. I plan to enjoy it for all it is worth whether I can get her to calm down or not." She left us be and I continued to rock with Elise as I tried to figure out how to soothe her. A little while later the nurse came back in and asked if I had changed her. Um.......no I hadn't done that. And, no, I wouldn't have any idea where to begin if I did have to change her. At that moment I realized how far in over my head I truly was. It was then I began to learn that parenting truly is learning on the fly. It would be a lot like my career in teaching. I had a long range plan and new what I wanted to do. In all reality, I was just trying to stay one day ahead of my students. Now, I was just trying to stay one day ahead of my own child.
As I lay next to Elise at nap time I realized that I am really not in a much more knowledgeable place today! While she no longer cries, she shows her emotions in other ways. When she is uncomfortable or unhappy she moves around constantly and sometimes pretty forcefully. Just like when she was a baby, she is not able to communicate what is bothering her or what she needs. It is a matter of figuring it out. Honestly, I'm just not very good at that. I don't know what she wants, and often I just can't figure it out. But, that doesn't stop me from trying. It can be very discouraging when she struggles, but it sure is rewarding when she stops struggling. Eventually today I wrapped my arms tightly around her and just held on until she went to sleep. As I lay there trying to determine if this was what she wanted or not, I realized it didn't seem to matter. She was calm, happy, and sleeping. I thought about getting up and just letting her sleep. But then I thought back to that very first night and recalled, I will never get this time back. Whatever else I could be doing will just have to wait. The nap was pretty short lived, but the time I got to enjoy with her was certainly a highlight of my day.
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