6 Weeks

Our little Bub did great at church today!! By that, I mean she slept the whole time. It was nothing short of miraculous.

Last week not so much. Last Sunday we went into Sacrament meeting and she was calm in her car seat. We sat down with baited breath. The baby looked peaceful. For 11 seconds. Then her eyebrows slowly screwed together and she glared vicously around the room. Out came the beginnings of some loud noise. I removed her from her seat and jiggled her vigorously on my lap. She became peaceful again. For about 4 seconds. Then she opened her extremely large pie-hole and screamed like her legs were being plucked from her body. We spent the rest of the hour in the Mother's Room, alternating between nursing and moaning to nurse some more.

This week she was asleep when we got there, and she stayed that way. She stirred a few times, and woke up in the middle, but we nursed a bit and she was in a pleasant enough mood afterwards to go back into Sunday School. Where she fell asleep again. Unheard of. My arms were a stiff miserable mess after holding her for three hours straight (I couldn't put her down or she would wake up) and I noticed around the room that all the other women who held babies could move about, talk normally, switch positions, you know- act human. Their little infants slumbered peacefully and appeared not to notice. Whereas our little dictator opened her eyes with a vicious warning if I were to, say, shift in my seat. Or breathe. When people in the room opened or closed the doors, or sneezed, or moved their chairs, the other babies slept on as though in comas. Annalise's eyes would fly open and she would glare furiously in the direction of the offending loudness and threaten to erupt into screams until jiggled into comfort once more. I had to stop myself from acting in kind. I've never hated people with colds so much.

Also, I noticed that among her infant peers, Annalise seemed huge. Chubby. Very rotund and healthy, and not the pathetically starving shrivelly rat I tend to think of her as. Tinier, skinnier babies all around the room let out polite mewing noises to alert their mothers if they were unhappy. Our little tyrant screeches like a banshee at a decibel to be proud of, were she a contender for a World's Loudest Human contest. I always assume she screams like she does because she is so frail and clearly wasting away with her tininess and thus must alert me to her fragile state with alarm lest I not take her seriously and she die from waiting one extra milisecond. Her much calmer and tinier counterparts alerted me that, in fact, the Diminutive Despot might instead just be excessively... despot-ish. Huh. Just my luck.

She looked pretty stylish in her outfit today, a 4-piece ensemble from Gymboree, bought on the cheap from a consignment sale last spring. What a cutie!