Through the monitor

Baby monitor snuggled up with stuffed animals in Sofia's crib.

Today, after attempting to put Sofia down for a nap, I instead heard her babbling to herself for a good long time. Eventually though, the babbling seemed to get much closer, and then started to sound like slobber-on-electronics. Turned out my theory was correct. She had grabbed the monitor off the table to the side of her crib [apparently not far enough off to the side], pulled it into the crib, and was talking right into it and attempting to eat it as well. She sure knows how to get my attention.


I'm thinking about communication a great deal lately. I have enjoyed having an outlet through this blog to communicate with all of you, even though most of you who read are invisible to me. This new outlet comes at the same time that I have this new little person to communicate with.


This past year, I've had to learn so much about non-verbal communication. Despite all the promises of baby books that I would be able to "learn to distinguish my baby's cries," I found out that it was not so easy. How many times did she cry, or make strange faces, or wave her hands around in weird ways and leave me baffled as to what she meant? So many.


My mom had the most brilliant idea this past Christmas [this is a bit of a tangent, just go with me here]. Who can afford to give every person in the family a Christmas gift anymore? And with our family so spread out, figuring out gifts that each person - that you haven't seen in two years - is an insurmountable challenge. For lots of our family gatherings, we've resorted to Secret Santa exchanges or White Elephant games in lieu of presents. But to bring back in some of that personal touch that made exchanging gifts with everyone so special, my mom's idea was this: we drew names, Secret Santa style, but instead of just getting that person a gift, you asked two questions:


1) What was your biggest challenge this past year?
2) What are you most looking forward to about this coming year?


With your recipient's answers in mind, you could make an informed gift buying decision that spoke to where they were in life. When we exchanged gifts, we shared what we learned about the person we were giving to, so the whole family got this efficient, but really meaningful update on each other and a beautiful opportunity to connect. It was so fantastic.


My answer to question number two was looking forward to being able to communicate with Sofia, as she acquired language. A few less befuddled guessing games, and we could really start getting somewhere. My aunt had drawn my name and got me a great book on baby sign language - isn't that perfect?! Sofia has already mastered a few signs. Though mostly, I think she's mastered the idea that signs get her things she wants. So when we're not clearly understanding her, she just runs through all the signs until we get it, and also fall over laughing. This is going to be a fun year!


While I am having fun hearing her express words in meaningful ways, so slowly, but surely, there's another part of me that is going to miss the way we've communicated this past year. Even if I don't feel confident about translating all of her cries, we did develop our own mommy-baby language of sorts. I felt adamant about finding ways to figure out what she was thinking and feeling, as confusing as that process might have been. I was able to subconsciously come to know her quirks, her funny eye-rolls, tilts of her head, inflections in her babbles. I was able to learn things about her moods, her energy level, her interests, her fears. And there was something so uniquely intimate in that bond we developed.


When I can resort to words with everyone else, I rely on those words to tell me what people mean. Of course, that's not a great idea, since most communication is non-verbal [hence Emily's wise distaste for talking on the phone, because she knows that she's missing most of the conversation that way]. But I'm lazy. I take people at their word, I'm gullible like that. But Sofia has been teaching me to listen more fully, because apparently I didn't learn that lesson well enough in my MSW program. As I take that lesson into my communication with my husband, with friends, with my family, I'm finding so much more intimacy in my relationships.


And so as Sofia learns words, it feels bittersweet. I know my lazy self. We won't have to work quite so hard to understand each other, so we won't, and we'll probably miss a bit of content about the other's inner self that way.


So as fun as it was for Sofia to say "tick tock" when she saw some cool clocks this morning, I hope I'll keep looking to see her eyes light up, her mouth form that little "o!" of excitement, and feel the way her body lurches towards the object of her fascination. I hope she has changed me forever, at least to some degree, so that we can maintain this intimacy, and I can learn to be a mother/wife/daughter/friend who listens more fully.