Wednesday, November 25, 2015

On the eve of our travel adventures...

So tomorrow we embark on our first substantial trip (longer than to town and back) with Terah in tow!  So what am I doing blogging when there is plenty of packing, cleaning, food preparations, etc... to be done?  It just seems that anything pre-travels will seem like old news by next week when we land home again (in a whole new month)!  So I figured I might as well note a few things from our week.

The girls enjoyed their last playdate day with I & M this week since they will be traveling until the new year.  We enjoyed an evening get together with their family, complete with Alida sacking out on the futon from sheer exhaustion to Kali reading Calvin & Hobbes  (an 8 hour playdate is a lot for that gal!).  I was sure we were going to have a rough night with Terah as she fell asleep right before they arrived around 5:30 p.m. and was still sleeping when they left around 8:30 p.m. It's the only night we've ever had like this but she really never woke. I changed her diaper, fed her and headed to the bedroom.  It was about 6:30 a.m. when I next changed her and my goodness what a mess we both were.  We pretty promptly got in the shower...  She was super happy after her night of sleeping more or less 13 hours (rousing just to nurse).  We haven't had a night like that since - was it the few sips of elderberry wine I had at dinner??

This past weekend Kali cashed in a birthday coupon for a 2 night sleepover for her and Alida at Aunt Emily's.  They had a grand time, which was not a surprise to any of us! They went to the play A Year with Frog and Toad at EMU and Alida has been talking about it ever since.  This morning she came into the kitchen walking funny and told me it was how Toad walked.  I had to wonder if Terah missed them as she had two trying evenings, while they were gone.  But she has had at least one since so I'm not sure if my hypothesis is correct or not.  Jason and I had been hoping that with only one child under our roof we might snag a bit of time together and might also spend part of the night in the same bed.  Terah had other plans - I ended up sacking out in the recliner when she finally settled close to 11 p.m. the first night.  The day in between the two nights was great though, complete with Jason and I getting to work on a project together outside.  He had dug the next biochar pit for our humanure compost and we worked together on the burn.  It was the perfect job to do together on a chilly clear day. I could help with Terah in the front pack and we could talk while we worked.
Sunday morning the three of us headed over to Emily and Jonas' and were treated to a delicious breakfast. I then hung out with Emily and the girls while Jason did some work on their house (he's getting in hours here and there as he is able to in between vast amounts of venison broth canning).  All of us girls enjoyed a railroad walk until Alida got too tired to go any further.  An 8 hour playdate may wear her out, but a 2 night sleepover definitely tops it.  She was coming apart at the seams by the time we got home Sunday afternoon.  Nothing a good night's sleep couldn't cure!

Last evening we had a record number of people in our home since Terah's birth.  Our monthly supper club has grown significantly in size over the past few years to the point that the children now out number the adults 11 to 8.  The three other families graciously offered to provide the food and we just provided the space.  At the time we set the date of November 24th for our next supper club, I thought I'd be up for cooking, but they insisted.  My goodness I'm glad they did. I incorrectly assumed I'd have my stride back no problem by the time Terah was 6 weeks old.  She is doing an excellent job of keeping me on my toes.  She did a great job last evening with 10 older children running around the house having a wonderful time together.  And I even got to enjoy a leisurely dinner and conversation with friends while she snoozed.  Once they left she did her routine of nursing, seeming to fall asleep, popping back awake, repeat... That went on until after 10 p.m., but she wasn't sad throughout (she just wore her mommy out!).

As she was laying awake on the changing table after the older girls were both in bed, she was giving me the sweetest smiles and coos. I asked her if she was buttering me up for the night ahead.  If that was her goal, she was quite successful.  She really couldn't be much cuter or sweeter.  I love her expanding "vocabulary."

I've spent a good amount of time thinking about her "fussy times" which I have chosen to rename "emotional exhales" for my own processing of and dealing with them.  While there is not a real consistent pattern, if there is one at all it is that sometime in the evening (often between 7-8:30), Terah will have a time in which she gets so worked up she is not easily comforted by distractions, nursing, rocking, dancing, singing, etc... It takes my full focus and energy to try a bunch of things in close succession in an attempt to keep her from screaming so hard she can't catch her breath.  I normally can do it, but it is incredibly hard for me to not feel anxious about her sadness or wonder what we are doing wrong or what she needs to "fix it."

However, as I've paid close attention to these "episodes" there are many ways in which is seems that she just needs to work something out. It's as if she has an excess of stored energy inside and needs a way to release it.  So I've started to think about responding to Terah in those times the way I would want someone to respond to me if I felt strong emotions and needed to release them. I was just walking with a good friend the other day and talking about how we struggle to know how to deal with anger, especially when faced with situations of obvious injustice.  It's not that I think that Terah is necessarily experiencing a lot of anger or injustice, but I do like the thought that how we respond to her strong emotions now might give her a good foundation for dealing with strong emotions as an older child and even an adult.

Speaking of strong emotions, she has awoken in the pack and is sharing some with me right now. They are clearly attributed to what she would like to deposit in her diaper. So time to sign off. The next time I write we will have traveled to Pennsylvania and back and introduced Terah to lots more of her family.   

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