Do Not Want

So, it’s swiftly apparent that one of Jaenelle’s favourite people is the Housemate, Aff. From a baby point of view, this makes sense. He has the largest hands (besides Rhys) and when he holds her she feels secure. Also, she finds him funny, for reasons none of us can figure out

So Jaenelle was being held and talked to and it came time for her to be fed. Since we feed her through a tube in her nose, it’s easiest to keep her in her cot to do so. Aff, since he was talking to her, said “Okay, now we have to put you down in your cot, so you can have dinner, okay?”

Jaenelle’s smile immediately dropped into a sad frown, to his alarm.

“No, really, you have to be put back down in your cot-“

Even more tragic, tears welling at corners of big, WIDE EYES expression.

Me: *stifle laugh*

Aff: *slowly move toward cot and leans downward*

Jaenelle: *BURSTS OUT INTO ABSOLUTELY HEARTBROKEN AGONIZED TEARS*

Aff: O_O *hands Jaenelle to me, as I am an unhelpful Mom and cuddle and laugh at the same time as she wails and I comfort her*

Mind the reverse is more often true: he’ll lean over her, say hi and she’ll break out into this big gummy smile

9 thoughts on “Do Not Want

    1. R.K. Modena Post author

      I dunno, apparently the ones Rhys and I make are bundles of opinions even before birth. There’s a number of baby photos that show that infants are very much people from birth. Jaenelle would shift toward the side he was sitting at when she heard his voice, and I’m told every infant in utero hated the belted on ultrasound heart rate monitors. Nurses told me that most of them shift away from the hard bump of the monitor, and they watched Jaenelle writhe and wriggle and kick the belt down from the upper side of my belly, to the lower. They were rather impressed.

      During one of my visits to the NICU, I was told with vast amusement that Jaenelle had been spoilt by her stay in an isolation room. She had returned to the ‘we are just waiting for these babies to grow’ part of the NICU, and the boy next to her was usually crying if he wasn’t being held, and would then set off his neighbour, a 2 month old girl. It would be a chorus!

      Jaenelle, apparently would grumble, her glare in the direction of her noisy neighbours very patent, with periodic ‘shush!’ cries. After a while though, she gave up and ignored them all. She would sleep through alarms, really loud crying, and all sorts of noise. I think the quiet of the house was a change for her; in case she needs comforting I recorded the sounds of the last time she was in the pediatric ICU.

      I’ll have to find this particular photo I love of her. You see nothing except her hair, which is all black and standing up from her bath, as she’s scrunched herself down into her swaddle.

      1. thephantom182

        Mine survived the messed-up baby stage and grew to become lippy teens. Yay! Took a really long time though, since 2000. Funny how it feels like nothing sometimes.

        I fully understand why you can’t read a book properly right now, both of mine were very messed up as babies. I took up model airplanes for the first one, because being interrupted from a video game or a book made me angry. You can’t be angry around the barely functional baby. Its a human, it can tell you’re mad. Being interrupted while fiddling with a plastic model kit, that was okay.

        Many airplanes were made. It was like a little factory. ~:D

  1. Foxfier

    snickering so hard

    And they say babies can’t be manipulative…. (Never understood how anybody who’d been around a kid for ten minutes could think that.)

    1. R.K. Modena Post author

      She doesn’t have Brandon’s EPIC SADFACE, but she has the oh so heartbreaking lower lip wobble. She has not yet unleashed that on Aff, but Rhys and I have seen it a couple of times. I can’t resist the lip wobble!

      I’m sure it doesn’t help that Rhys and I make babies so cute that even when they’re upset they’re freaking adorable. Rhys always found Mr. Grumbles’ looks of total dismay amusing as hell and he admitted that sometimes he wanted to provoke more, to see what new ones would surface. Jaenelle has a recognisable Patient Face, I’m told, when I’m going SQUEEEE and making incoherent happy noises while cuddling her.

      Oh and Jaenelle is VERY COMMUNICATIVE. Her crying has recognisable tone and expressiveness, and she engages in multisyllabic Opinion Sharing now, (both conversationally and THIS SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!) You can definitely hear the Complaints And Opinions, even if she doesn’t have words yet.

      1. Foxfier

        The (dis)Contessa mostly has strong views about being near a warm body.

        Mommy got up to take a shower?
        Go bug daddy.
        Daddy is up?
        MOOOOM! Comfort me in my isolation!

        1. R.K. Modena Post author

          Jaenelle loves cuddles, but given how often she ends up throwing up… =(

          She doesn’t mind being in her cot for extended periods, but she does do the ‘cry and see if anyone responds, to see if I’m COMPLETELY abandoned and alone!!!’ Patpat – she’ll settle. It’s a very specific cry too, Rhys calls it the “I am alone and unsupervised” cry.

        2. R.K. Modena Post author

          Oh and that’s my biggest sad by the way, about this whole thing. Jaenelle needs to be allowed to rest in her cot so her stomach settles and she doesn’t hurl all her food. I keep feeling she isn’t as cuddled as my other babies.

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