The world just got a whole lot bigger
Hazel is constantly growing and changing and not a day goes by when we don’t notice something new and different from the day before- but this weekend was pretty spectacular as far as changes go. In addition to trying her first piece of goat cheese (she loved it, more about that later) and cruising around the house at lightning fast speeds, we’ve noticed a change that is both subtle and striking all at once.
It all started about 10 days ago… We went from our usual easy-going routine into a tail spin of sleepless nights, harried days and countless frustrated moments in between. Suddenly Hazel seemed to be fussy all the time- nothing made the girl happy, not even the Boom Dee Yada song, and that’s saying something. I immediately chalked it up to teething as I am inclined to do. I had Jered convinced she was about to sprout a couple of pointy pearly whites. I was even pretty convinced myself, this amount of fussing had to mean teething, what else could it be? (a bit of dramatic forshadowing here- Hazel is still toothless) Lucky for us the craziness reached its peak after about a week- on Valentines Day, actually. We were up at least 5 times that night trying to soothe our pseudo-teething child back to sleep. We even gave her tylenol to take the edge off the pain we were sure she was experiencing. By Sunday morning last week we were spent and feeling a bit uncertain about this whole parenthood gig- would this be our new normal? Were we destined to have a child who constantly cried and couldn’t sleep longer than 45 minutes at a time?
Fortunately, the storm passed by about midweek. Hazel fell back into her usual pleasant routine and Jered and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. We were a bit confused, though- after all that fussing she still had no teeth to show for it. It turns out the whole thing was probably not related much to teething at all. It seems Hazel was making another leap- a developmental (and possibly physical) growth spurt. This weekend it dawned on us that our girl was different when we started to see her doing some things differently. She has been cruising for a couple of weeks now, but this weekend we noticed her stopping to bend over and pick things up. Then we would see her get herself from crawling to sitting to stop and carefully examine her blocks- pushing them around slowly, then banging them deliberately on a book or another toy. We watched as she stood at the gate separating her from the animals and reached for Oscar even though he was halfway across the room. And then tonight…
Jered snuck out to the YMCA for a late Sunday afternoon workout and Hazel and I were hanging out at home. We were doing our usual thing- chasing stuffed animals around the coffee table, playing peek-a-boo with her favorite blanket, clapping our hands, waving, nothing out of the ordinary. Hazel decides to crawl over to me and brings two little star shaped blocks with her. She sits herself down in front of me and places both blocks on the ground. She looks up at me and claps. I ask her if I can have a block… and she picks up one of the blocks and places it in my hand and then claps and squeals with delight. I then offer the block to her- “Hazel, do you want the block?”- She takes it in her hand and tries clapping while holding the block, squealing all the while. I ask her again, “Can mama have the block?” She gives it to me and squeals and claps. I have never been more delighted in my entire life.
So what’s so exciting about this simple exchange? I can’t put my finger on exactly what it was, but there was something in the way she looked at me while we were playing- like there was a new level of understanding, a depth that hasn’t been there before. I am so excited for this new stage and it kills me that we both have to go to work tomorrow.
We leave you with a few pictures from this past week- hope you are all well!
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