Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Recovery

The stress and disappointment of the last few months hasn’t completely disappeared, but things are starting to fall back into a happier routine. I’m able to lick my wounds.

At times, I worry that Ruby has something wrong that makes her angry and clingy. Then we have a great day or two, and I get some perspective. I realize that she’s usually a happy kid, but when she’s unhappy, everyone within earshot shares in her pain. After ten or fifteen minutes of her crying, I feel like she has been screaming at me since the moment she was born. I know it isn’t true, and I just need to take a step back and think of the laughs we shared earlier in the day.

She still hasn’t learned to sleep, but we bought a futon for her room, and for the first time ever, she’s fallen asleep lying down, not in someone’s arms. That’s a plus. Also, if and when she starts waking up every hour or two, Ani can pull her out of her crib, and they can sleep together comfortably in her room on the futon. Eventually we hope to get rid of the crib altogether and have her sleep on the fold-away. I know many people would just stick her in her crib and let her cry it out, but she gets so distraught. We’re just not ready to do that to her yet. Of course, one can find a doctor or an expert to back any opinion, but most of the research and advice that I’ve felt comfortable with seems to be against the "cry-it-out" method. After much reading, we are comforted by the fact that our situation isn’t that uncommon, and we are taking gradual steps to rectify it. We are constantly afraid that we’re doing the wrong thing. I am coming to realize that I will be afraid of that for the next thirty or forty years. Welcome to parenthood.

Poor Kiko. She spends much of her time outside now. We are going to enroll her in obedience school this week. It’s a class specifically designed to help dogs adjust to toddlers. It is so hard to believe that she bit Ruby. When we first brought the baby home, Kiko was so loving and even protective of her. That was before Ruby could sprint directly at her and pull her fur and ears, hard. Whenever they are together, I am in a state of apprehensive terror, which probably doesn’t help the situation. I haven’t seen any signs of aggression, but Kiko is so deadpan and hard to read. I love that dog so much; it’s awful to feel afraid of or angry with her. Good dog.

On the positive side, Ruby is becoming much more comfortable out in the world! We have been going to the park everyday,

and trying to visit friends and family at least three or four times a week. She used to be afraid of new places, but now, after a brief shy period, she opens up and starts running off into the distance, pointing at ducks, dogs, other kids, or random spirits and apparitions that only she can see. She loves to run down hills; the momentum and entropy of her descent crashes in chaos at the bottom, but the whole process never fails to elicit smiles and laughs. She didn’t use to like walking back up the hill. The last couple of days however, she has begun to master the art of walking while holding Dad’s hand. Everything else in the world disappears when she looks up into my eyes and ambles from side to side as if she was doing a Charlie Chaplin impression.

She will be a year old on Saturday.

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