30 day blog challenge - Day 17

Day 17: Something You're Looking Forward To

Besides my beloved Christmas, there is something that I am DEFINATELY looking forward to. MC talking. I know, I know. If you are a veteran parent I can only imagine what you are yelling at your computer right now ("Are you serious?! I PROMISE you will regret saying that!! Once they start, they never stop!!!") And I get that. However, MC has issues. As I have discussed numerous times before, MC has poop issues. (This is where you stop reading if you are not interested in reading about my child's poop. I'm sorry to discuss it, however if you're a mom, poop just isn't as controversial or quite so disgusting anymore...) MC has had constipation issues for as long as I can remember. We've been struggling with it and now we've reached another dilema. Since she went so long with painful poop, she's now holding it in. Being that I google EVERYTHING of course I googled the situation. It seems odd after my research that she would be doing this at such a young age, but its quite obvious that's what she's doing (yes, I'll spare you a little and not go into details) Now, why on earth did I share this information with you? Well, its because this is just one of the many reasons I want MC to talk. I want to know what's wrong with her or what's hurting her. She has been sick the last 3 days with a fever and when the child cries, I have NO idea what's wrong with her. Is she hot/uncomfortable from the fever? Is she hungry (she hasn't wanted anything to do with food or formula since she got sick)? Is she constipated? Does her throat hurt? Is her nose too stuffy? I mean YOU NEVER KNOW. I want her to be able to walk up to me and say "mom, listen. My poop will not come out. A little help here?". But no. I just get WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH.

Now, most often when this occurs I go into "I'm-a-horrible-good-for-nothing-mom" mode. I feel like I am supposed to know what her cries mean. I mean, we've all heard that moms are able to decipher the dynamic code that is our child's cry - however, I was apparently not endowed with this gift. Even when MC was little. I never knew what her cries meant. It all just sounded like waaaaaahhhh to me. Anyway, I still to this day just look at her like a confused dog watching a ceiling fan when the wails begin....

Now, I mentioned this point on facebook and I got responses about baby signing. When I had MC I knew I wanted to use signs. I got the Baby Signs book and began reading when she was a couple of months old. We even began using a few signs when she was about 7 or 8 months. I had every intention of sticking with it, however, you know how that goes. Everything got crazy and sadly the baby signs were abandoned. Now I'm wondering now if she's too old for me to try to pick it back up. I would LOVE for her to be able to communicate with us beyond "ball" and "bye-bye". (Especially since she still hasn't grasped the whole "bye-bye" concept yet. We'll be sitting on the floor of her room playing and she'll look at me and say "bye-bye". I'm like, kid, where are ya goin? We're in a room with the door closed and you're about 1 foot shy of being able to reach that shiny brass doorknob. You aint going "bye-bye" anytime soon.) I digress. Back to the signs. Has anyone ever used signs with your baby? Did they pick up on it quickly and was it useful? I'd love to hear about your experience with it and how easy/difficult it was for you as a parent.

With all that said, I'm looking forward to sweet baby girl being able to talk. Mommy's tired of the guessing game.