This weekend, we had a lot of guests and visitors. Now that I'm a parent, I have learned that nothing is better than to have no guests ever.
On Friday night, we went over to Sy's family's house to have dinner together. Emily ate slower than she ever has - took nearly an hour to finish her bottle. She then was forced to stay up way past her usual bedtime so everyone could get enough playtime with her. But by 8pm, she looked like a zombie out of sheer exhaustion. At one point, she burst out into a cry that came out of nowhere, and I swear she was blowing up saying For the love of God - please let me sleep! When we finally got home, Emily had so much trouble sleeping. Usually when she's so exhausted, she knocks out and sleeps hard. But not this time - she couldn't stay down for the life of her. We ended up rocking her and going back and forth to her room until past 11pm! That was the first time we'd had to go to her past 8pm since she was 5 weeks old! It made me never want to take her out again!
On Saturday, a few of my friends came to visit, and I noticed that Emily was fine to be held by 2 out of the 3 of my friends. The one person Emily did not seem to like - she would cry everytime she tried to hold her. It made me wonder - can babies sense when someone is not good with babies? Can Emily feel the stiffness in her arms? Can Emily sense the lack of baby-love?
Also, another friend noticed that Emily would crane and stretch her neck to look for me since I wasn't holding her. At first I didn't believe her, but as I watched Emily throughout the afternoon, it did seem like she was looking for me.
On Sunday, my cousins came to visit, and this time - Emily seemed to cry when other people held her, but would calm down as soon as I held her.
It's made me wonder - does Emily know who I am in a crowd of people? Does she already have a little bit of stranger anxiety and want to be held by me to feel safe? On the one hand I find that so sweet. Never in my life has any baby ever wanted or requested me. It makes me feel special and loved to be her mama. But on the other hand, I am extremely worried that she will be one of those kids who cry and cry around strangers. I don't want that for Emily - I want her to be brave and independent and outgoing - to be happy to go to anyone and to be a friendly baby. How do you foster that kind of personality trait? How do you prevent stranger danger behavior?
It's been an interesting weekend. But man, am I relieved that it's Monday and we can give Emily a nice normal 5 days before the weekend chaos begins again. I hope she charges up enough routine-ness for the next 5 days so she can be ready for another jam packed weekend. Yikes!
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