Weekly update

Hello Maia watchers! It's been a while since I last wrote, partly due to the fact that we've been busy visiting with many of you over the last several days. Those of you whom we didn't see: we hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We had two Thanksgivings this year: we spent Thursday in Portage with the Genisio side of the family, and Friday here in Ann Arbor with many of the Heckers (a shout-out to Aunt Katie and Tio Lu is due: we missed you!). Maia has now met all of her Great-Grandparents; it was really fantastic for her to have the opportunity to meet the LaMantias from Arizona at last.

Maia's continuing development into more of a toddler than a baby was evident during our two Thanksgivings. Her brain is able to understand and categorize so many things now that it couldn't previously: this is a house I know, this is not, this is a person I know, this is not . . . and a range of places in-between these two extremes. Almost daily, the degree to which Maia is primarily attached to Brian and I becomes more and more clear; this attachment is the source of most of her sleeping challenges in unfamiliar places and her hesitant behavior with unfamiliar people. If you were to ask Brian or I how thrilled we are with the aforementioned sleep challenges, we (of course) aren't so much, but, we know where the source is. And the fact of the matter is that if Maia were not exhibiting each and every one of these behaviors at this age, we'd be concerned about her attachment to us, and we'd probably be asking a whole bunch of questions about her neurological and emotional development.

I'm honored and thrilled by the fact that she feels at home here in this house, and she seeks comfort in being close to Brian and me. I read somewhere, back before Maia was born, that my main purpose of parenting in the first six or nine months of her life is to establish myself as her primary source of comfort and care. (This is an older research summary from the Department of Health and Human Services, one I read before Maia's arrival. Yes, I'm a nerd! I put citations in my blog entries!) In a way, her temporarily-clingy behavior now (and probably for the next several months) will reflect all of the effort that Brian and I have put into this attached relationship since the day she was born.

Does it sound a bit like I'm trying to talk myself into something? Probably. It is exhausting indeed to feel like we've regressed by months in terms of the quality of our sleep. Maia woke up and nursed three times last night between 7 PM and 7 AM; we haven't seen patterns like that since she was two months old. It's not easy to deal with an exhausted baby who is determined not to nap. It's not always easy to handle a baby who is expressing her opinions and emotions so much more strongly now. But again, I remind myself: be happy that Maia tells you what she wants. That means that she has confidence that I'll be there to meet her needs when she expresses them.

It's now a few hours after I began writing this post. The three of us have just returned from the bookstore, where Maia crawled around and was enthralled by the older kids who were also there. She does this throaty laugh, "Heh," whenever she sees something that interests her, and so she was "Heh-ing" at everyone and everything at the bookstore this evening.

As we left the store, we were greeted with the first real snowfall of the year. It was dark, of course, and so Maia was fascinated by the huge snowflakes as they fell in the yellow light from the streetlamps lighting the parking lot. She reached up for them as they came down, and they landed on her forehead and in her hair and rested there. She blinked her eyes over and over again as the cool snowflakes landed on her cheeks. What I would have given to have a camera with me at that moment! :)