Time is flying by so fast! My beautiful Naama is 10 months old and she's so smart it's scary. I've heard from other disabled mothers that their children didn't start asking them questions until they were in school and their friends asked them why their mommy is different, so I thought I had time till I reached that stage with Naama, but I think we are there! Nonverbally of course!
Lately Naama fusses when I hold her for more than a few minutes. I can only hold her sitting down. I don't have the balance to do otherwise. When I pass her to my standing husband she excitedly reaches for him and happily stays in his arms. I think the reason she likes my husband more than me sometimes is because daddy is like a carnival ride for her. She loves when he tosses her in the air and catches her. She shrieks with laughter when he flies her around the room.
If I were her, I'd prefer daddy too! Naama lets Mary Poppins swing her around too=) I'm happy Naama is having fun. Strangely I'm not at all sad that I can't play flying baby with Naama. I just think of all the things I CAN do with her and that's enough for me.
Thankfully, Naama is a very calm baby. She sits and plays quietly on her mat with the baby sitter , but with me she crawls all over the place after playing for a little while and she usually crawls straight to places she shouldn't like the fan or the outlets! I wonder what the baby sitters secrets are?? How do they get her to sit and play quietly for so long? does Naama know that she can act around with me because I'm slow? Sometimes we will both be crawling toward the same object, often times I'm trying to stop her from getting something, and she will reach the object first. A few times she even smiled when she reached her goal before I could stop her...little stinker=) I'm still in physical therapy just for muscle maintenance and strengthening, but crawling and jumping up after Naama is better than any physical therapy!
Naama's developing and exploring is a recipe for boo boos, but I think her boo boos hurt me more than they hurt her. When I'm watching her explore and she bumps herself or falls, I immediately go to her, but sometimes I don't reach her fast enough and watching her little face register pain as she begins to cry is the hardest thing for me as a mom. I wasn't fast enough to prevent the pain. When I do reach her, I don't lift her. I haven't tried but I dont think I'd have the balance to lift her to me even when I'm on my knees. I'm afraid I'll fall sideways while holding her, so the most I do if it's a small boo boo, I tell her she's fine and she usually doesn't cry because she sees I'm not making a big deal out of it, but when she's playing on her floor mats or near the bookshelves and she bumps herself or falls and really hurts herself and cries, I crawl over as fast as I can and just hold her to me.
If Naama could talk I believe she would. One day when Naama was in her stroller and I was walking around the stroller to her, my sandal got caught on the stroller brake and I fell. Naama pushed herself up in her stroller and looked over the side at me on the floor with a facial expression that said mommy why are you on the floor?! It was such a funny moment, I almost peed myself laughing! Sometimes Naama will look at me up and down when I walk and its absolutely hilarious! my husband even noticed how Naama gives me the once over! I wonder if she will distance herself from me the way my little brother did for awhile because "I'm stupid and I fall down." I dont think this will be the case with my baby, but I do think she will ask questions as soon as she's able. she cant talk yet, but her eyes and facial expressions say it all.
Last week I was nursing Naama to sleep. The one thing I can't do with her is transfer a sleeping Naama from me to her crib, so sometimes if my husband forgets to check in on us and I don't have my phone, I can sit with her for close to an hour, which can get quite uncomfortable. One night I got so frustrated because it appeared my husband fell asleep, so I was stuck with Naama and I couldn't keep my eyes open and body parts were going numb on me. I let out a frustrated scream which caused Naama to wake with a scared cry. Even though I was the one who yelled, Naama still grabbed for me and put her little chubby arms around my neck. I hugged her, comforted her and rocked her back to sleep. Luckily my scream woke my husband and he took her off me, but I felt like such a bad mother for screaming like that and waking her..
There are ups and downs to everything in life and we will hit more bumps later on, but what I know now is that despite my limitations, Naama loves her mommy.
