Growing Up Before My Eyes

One of the things I have to remember as a mother is that my daughter is constantly growing. And not just in stature—as she's already outgrown all her newborn clothes by six weeks (not to mention that she graduated from her newborn diapers by the time she was five days old!). At seven weeks, she's now smiling and grinning more and more frequently. She's alert and loves looking around, wanting to be held less and less (until nap- and bed-time come, that is!) so that she can gaze at this world around her.

But she is growing and changing in so many other ways, as well.

While last week she could have cared less about her musical floor-gym, this week, she’s taken notice of the dangling toys and started (unintentionally) swatting at them. While the Happiest Baby on the Block technique might have worked to soothe her yesterday, it might fail miserably today. While she might have been content to fall asleep in a sling this morning, this afternoon she might have nothing of it.

These kinds of changes in her preferences can happen overnight it seems, which has become a challenge for me because I have to remember to keep trying and re-trying to expose her to new things, whether it’s an activity, an object, a soothing technique or something else. It’s all too easy for me to think that because she didn’t like fill-in-the-blank yesterday, she still won’t today, when that isn’t always the case.

It’s baffling to see how quickly these changes are coming at us, proof that she really is growing up, faster than I ever imagined.

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