Ahhh-Gooo

Piper 10 weeks, 1 day

Piper has become a chattering machine. A few weeks ago she really started to smile with regularity and her little noises began to sound like words. She has now progressed to long sessions of sitting on our laps and carrying on 'conversations' that are filled with genuine smiles in reaction to our faces. She looks deeply into our eyes and with a joyous face says, "Ahhh-Goooo".

Now I am not going to be one of those parents that thinks her child is a genius, but I swear Piper has been saying "good" and "okay". I always say, "Is that gooood?" when I am nursing her and we both say, "Okay," when we pick her up. When she is upset and I have her over my shoulder, Piper says "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" as her mouth bounces off my neck while she bobbles her head about. What else would she say when whimpering from being tired as I try to coax her to sleep?

I don't know when most babies are supposed to start talking, but Piper's babbling is is filled with multisyllabic words and compound sentences in her own little language. She is well on her way to giving a monologue about the trials of being a month old with foolish parents and how she 'survived' our ignorance. A speech I probably don't want to hear.

Piper is not only verbally advanced, but physically as well. From her very first day of life outside of the womb, she was able to lift her head up. On day two, she turned her face towards the sound of her uncle's voice on a cell phone. By one month old she could head-butt me like a drunken Irish soccer player and shortly after that had such good head control that she could 'fake me out' too. When lying on her belly during "Tummy Time", Piper could lift her head off the rug when she was just two and a half weeks old. Now she can do 'push ups' like a Marine in boot camp. She also crawls in place and has begun to scoot backwards. I figure she just wants to get a better view of the room by backing up, surely she is not backing away from her cheering parents' giant, admiring faces.

Piper is sleeping much better at night: from six to eight hours at a clip. It was stunning the first time she slept seven and a half hours one night. I was shocked when I checked the time as Griffin changed her when she woke up. I even counted on my fingers to make sure my math wasn't a bit fuzzy. Seven and a half hours! Now it has become commonplace for her to have a nice long night's sleep.

Of course, Piper wakes up ravenous. Going such a long time without eating brings out the wild animal in her and I have taken to calling her my "Baby Bobcat". Babies' fingernails grow very fast and after our first and only attempt at cutting them, I was just letting them grow. Occasionally, I would try to file them down, but Piper would fidget after the second one and I would give up.

In the morning after a long sleep Piper really wants to eat and gets very excited as she does so. She waves her little arm around as she slurps down my milk. If I am not paying attention to her and she slips a little from the nipple, she brings out the claws - those tiny baby nails turn into the slashing tools of a wildcat. The delicate skin on my chest has become her scratching post as she claws at me in frustration. I have to quickly readjust her to get the mauling to stop.

My in-laws babysat Piper two weeks ago while Griffin and I got to go out as a couple for a few hours. While Piper slept, my mother-in-law bravely cut Piper's nails. When she had offered to do this for us, I was very happy to let her. Piper squirms too much when she is awake to use those baby clippers and when she is asleep during the day I hate to wake her up. When we picked Piper up, Grandma informed us that she cut Piper's nails with no problem. I looked at them and indeed, they were nice and short.

During our next nursing session, when Piper began to bobble a bit, she whipped out her claws and I realized that my "Baby Bobcat" had turned into Freddie Kruger! Those cute little baby clippers made her tiny nails so sharp that Piper's slashing began to draw blood. I am now adorned with tiny, little scabs all over my chest. I have since tried to file her nails, but it hasn't done much good. Griffin and I will be making an attempt to cut her nails using a different clipper today.

Somehow, I have gotten off the track of how talented and advanced our little Piper is. As time is quickly running by, we are all getting along much better. Griffin and I are able to quiet her crying in minutes, if not, seconds. Piper sleeps through the night like a knocked-out champ and sucks down my milk like a hungry calf, forceful letdown and all. Things have vastly improved for all of us and Piper is becoming the adorable baby that we thought only existed in the minds of idealistic parents of older children.