The Hand

Blair has started something new. Or, perhaps I should say her hand has started somthing new. She's only shown interest in a pacifier for the past four months or so. For the past two months, she enjoys playing with the pacy as much as sucking on it. She goes to town on it, however, when we begin putting her to sleep.

It works perfectly. Her pacy helps to calm her down. She finally closes her eyes, her breathing slows and gets more regular, and then, it happens.

Her right hand takes on a life of its own. Just as she gets into that good, almost-deep sleep, "the hand" slowly begins to float up towards the pacy. If not stopped in time, it will pull the pacy out of her mouth, which of course wakes her up. So, we now have to hold "the hand" down until she's sleeping deeply enough for us to be able to remove the pacy from her mouth without fear of waking her.

Funny how "the hand" relaxes more when the pacy is safely out of her mouth. I guess it is "the hand's" mission to disrupt sleep and remove the bad pacy from the baby's mouth. Bad hand!

And before you say anything, yes, I am fully aware that I am doing both Blair and myself a big disservice by holding her and rocking her until she is fully asleep. I just can't help it. Have you ever seen her sleeping? She's like an angel! I can't bring myself to put her down. So there, baby whisperer and baby experts. So what if I am conditioning her to need me to go to sleep. Is it a bad thing if I wouldn't mind rocking her to sleep when she's 20?