Most new parents want to spend every moment watching their child, where every twitch, sneeze, drool and gas induced smile is a moment to rejoice. Alison and I want to watch TV. However, while we are trying to watch TV, Zoe is twitching, sneezing and drooling. We started a movie at 8:00 and at 9:45 we had only managed thirty minutes of the film. Trying to read is the same. Actually, doing almost anything requires patients and stamina. And flexibility. While reading that newspaper article or begin cooking that special something that requires stirring every few minutes, you learn to hold and sooth with one hand and perform circus acts with the other. Newspapers continue to give me trouble. I can’t seem to get a page to fold back on itself. I always end up with a kink that dissects the very article I am trying to read.
Zoe, now six weeks and two days old, squirms as if she is trying to escape from a pit of snakes. And because she does not yet have full neck control, her head will sometimes pivot like she is possessed. If you do not have a firm grip on her, or turn your own head at just the wrong moment, there will be a meeting of minds that will leave one of us screaming. But of course I like to see all this wiggling. It demonstrates that all her neurological thingamajigs are working and that she is on course to eventually grab and break off the knobs of my stereo.
Zoe likes to be walked while hanging over a shoulder. If she’s fussy you can’t sit down. You can’t cradle her. And you can’t stop walking. So now you have this squirming, drooling, head bobbing creature trying to climb up your chest while your trying to fold a newspaper in half. More often than not I end up with a paper that looks like origami created by a drunken monkey. Maybe newborns are why they created American Idol.
See photos of Zoe at "http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass"
Good for people to know.
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