Three little examples of how I am figuring this out:
1.
Every few days Atti will have obvious pain in his gums. So far he’s got two little bottom teeth and a new one just started poking it’s head out of the top. One day last week he was just inconsolable. Tylenol wouldn’t work, cuddles didn’t help, Bear was so frustrated there was nothing he could for him. I picked Atti up and started massaging his gums with my fingers. After just a few seconds he looked up at me with surprise and broke into a huge grin. Oh how my heart melted. I fixed it. Mama made it better.
2.
Atti has to get at least two shots a month, this month he’s had to get eight. His usual nurse knows our routine and when she’s all done with his shots and he’s cleared for cuddles she always says, “OK mom, it’s singing time!” since she’s watched as month after month I pick him up and start to sing and he stops crying before she’s even cleaned up. This month we had a new nurse for one of the appointments and after his shots were finished I started to sing his favorite song. The nurse just snapped her head up and said, “Wow. *That* worked.”
3.
In his physical therapy, there are a couple of exercises that we return to over and over again, because they’re important stepping stones on to more mobility and because he refuses to do them. There’s one exercise that requires him to kind of do an oblique sit up. For most babies it’s instinctual, but for mine it involves a lot of training. We’ve been working on “trunk righting” (or sitting up without falling over to the side) for nearly eight months now with very little change.
Then one day I was playing with him and making a K-k-k sound, just to introduce the consonant to him. I’d come forward towards his face with each K, and then I’d boop his nose with my nose and say “Kitty!” He just thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life and laughed until he gave himself the hiccups. I noticed that he liked it so much he’d start to bring his head up to mine, meeting me halfway with a little sit up so I’d boop our noses together. As an experiment I turned him to the side and watched as he suddenly mastered doing that sideways sit up we’ve been working on for his whole life, just to touch noses with his mom.
Heaven knows there are enough frustrations and failures in the day to day of parenting. I’m writing these down to remember that when I succeed, there is no other feeling like it on earth.