roll another one, just like the other one
speaking of neighbors, the couple two doors down from us had a baby about 12 days before we had ours. very sweet. mrs nice guy and i had visions of becoming their best friends: having clambakes together, going on vacation, strolling through prospect park, hosting key parties. they invited us over to a little soiree not long after they moved in, when everyone was pregnant, giddy and glowing ... and we haven't been invited back. they ably deflect all invitations to our home. ("why don't we wait until things settle down after the babies are born." "we have guests this weekend." "oh we're going to our beach house for a month.")right. moments before they departed for said beach house, i was talking to the dad. mind you, this was a month ago AND, his daughter is only 12 days older than mine:
mr nice guy: how's the baby?
neighbor dad: oh great. her new thing is rolling over. we put her on the bed and she just flops around.
mr nice guy: really? rolling over? already?
neighbor dad: yeah. she's mastered left-to-right, but not right-to-left. she'll get it soon enough though.
mr nice guy: oh. our baby has mastered drooling.
so by now, a month later, surely the bambino should be rolling over, right? the fear-mongers at "what to expect" seem to think so. the touchpoints people too. ah. but our child apparently has other plans ... plans that largely involve not napping either.
we do fool ourselves, though: we put her on her back, on the rug, and place a toy to her left. then we grab her right hand and gently drag it across the front of her body. "look at the toy! don't you want to roll over to get your toy?" eventually, we have tugged her arm enough and she flops onto her side. "LOOK WHO ROLLED OVER!" we shout in glee, with a vehemence that fails utterly to conceal our shame (even though, let's face it, the longer she remains immobile, the better for everyone) .
we also give her lots of "tummy time," an expression that never ceases to give me the jeebles. she lies there on her stomach, grunts, wiggles and, it would seem, practises her breaststroke. she may not roll over, but i am pretty sure she could swim the damn english channel.
you know what? i think i just figured out her master plan. she is a devious little shit, she is. she thinks she's sooo clever, but i made her, so i know how she thinks: she is waiting for the next time we manually her roll over. as we congratulate ourselves for having such a talented daughter, we will be too distracted to notice that she has generated enough drool to swim away. sweet escape!
where will she go? how far will she swim? that's easy: to the neighbors, two doors down, who are obviously much better parents. and own a beach house.
posted by mr. nice guy at 11:18 AM
8 Comments:
"Tummy time" freaked my sister out too. She came to visit when the baby was 5 weeks old, and she told me that she watched in fascinated horror when I exclaimed "tummy time!" in a way too cheery voice, pulled out the "hideously ugly" (my sister's description) playmat, and then put the baby down face first to squirm helplessly for the doctor prescribed 5 minutes.
Don't worry. My babe is 6 months old & he still doesn't roll over. He's much more interested in trying to stand at the coffee table and stealing the remote control. We figure he's super advanced and wants to skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade. I'm sure baby nice guy is also in this super genius category.
put her in the middle of your bed, leave the room to grab the ringing phone and she'll roll right off the bed onto the hardwood floor.
worked for us!
and thanks to the impact, her little gums smacked together so hard she cut a tooth whole she was at it!
i bet your neighbors' baby doesn't have a tooth.
Don't be so eager for the bambino to achieve all the milestones. As soon as discovers mobility, you'll wish she were just a little slower than the other kids. There is no more just putting them down for a second.
Oh, and our neighbors, the ones who had a little girl 3 mos before we had our boy? Not one playdate invite. He's nine months for crying out loud. He's not gonna try to make a move or anything! Geesh...
My daughter was born about 2 weeks before yours. And she just lies on her back, flailing her limbs like a pathetic stranded turtle. My mom's comment two weeks ago on the failure to roll over? "Well, she is a rather large baby." Yeah. My child is too fat to roll over.
Personally I think it's the side burns!
My son rolled from back to tummy at 6 months. He is almost 8 months old and has yet to figure out the return trip. He just hangs out on his stomach swimming and doing pushups until he starts crying. Milestone - shmilestones. They'll drive you freakin' insane!
Oh thank goodness others are freaked out by "tummy time".
My first friend to spawn used that term to me on the phone and I nearly dropped dead from agita. Instead, I poured myself a large bourbon (rocks) and swore to myself that instead of "tummy time" my child will have "tums time" from imbibing too much scotch in his/her ba-ba.
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