Tad Suiter

This is going to be another Wonder Weeks-related post.

The last week or so has been an intense one for Test Subject V. My sister, her husband, and their two-year-old all came for an  all-too-short visit, which meant lots of new people. My nephew was completely enamored with V, which was adorable, and it was her first prolonged exposure to a toddler.

(It was also the first prolonged exposure to a toddler that my wife and I have had in a good long while, and we’re now both somewhat slightly terrified of what’s to come.)

On top of that, she’s been entering what the book refers to “Wonder Week 8—The World of Patterns.” Essentially, this has manifested itself as a series of days where she is either sleepless and fussy, unable to calm herself unless she is in our arms or interacting with us, alternating with days where she’s more like a hibernating bear, occasionally waking for milk breaks.

In terms of her development, it’s another quantum leap in terms of her awareness of and interaction with the world around her. She’s grabbing things. She is fascinated with her own hands, to a level that I’m almost jealous of. She is suddenly playing with toys—see the above image.

I keep thinking about the malfunctioning robot in the 1986 Ally Sheedy/Steve Guttenberg film “Short Circuit.” After being electrocuted and having his memory wiped, robot number 5, who later dubs himself “Johnny 5,” ends up in Ally Sheedy’s house, seeking “input”—information. His appetite for new information is insatiable.

That’s what Test Subject V has been like. She wants MORE INPUT, constantly. She can’t even sleep because there’s so much world to take in. It’s fascinating and inspirational and terrifying to watch.

Because My Colleague and I are somewhat older parents– not “old parents,” by today’s standards, but we’re never going to be featured on MTV’s Teen Mom– we had an additional round of genetic testing while Test Subject V was in utero.  Everything came out completely average, and we both breathed a small sigh of relief.

The upshot of that testing, though, was that we discovered V’s sex extremely early on, before it could be detected via ultrasound.

All of this leads to a scene where I, overwhelmed father to be, just starting to wrap his head around the idea that he was going to have a daughter, found himself wondering the aisles of Babies R Us with his wife, trying to figure out how car seat and stroller systems work and whether or not you needed one, just completely experiencing sticker shock at everything.

And then I saw this onesie. This Batgirl onesie. And I knew that I was going to watch superhero cartoons with her just like my mother had with me, and that I wanted her to love comics as much as I did, and I couldn’t leave the store without it.

My Colleague humored me, as it was my money if I wanted to waste it.

I’m really more of a Marvel fan than a DC guy— I haven’t really enjoyed much DC since they decided to go all grimdark and I still long for the glory days of the Giffen and DeMatteis Justice League. I like the Bat-family well enough, but my Batman will always be either Michael Keaton or Adam West (with Casey Kasem as the voice of Robin, natch).

When I was a kid, my mom would watch Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends with me. My first comic was an issue of Spidey Super Stories. I grew up addicted to Marvel’s mutant books. I’m just not a huge Batman guy.

But I love this onesie so, so much. Not because of a particular investment in Batgirl (though I love Barbara Gordon and Cassie Cain),  but because it’s the first thing that I got that let me think about passing my fandom down to my kid.

And even more than that, it’s the first thing that I got that was really for Test Subject V, for her, and not just for “a baby.” This was the first purchase I made for her thinking of her as a person.

And I know my sense of her as a person will grow and change so much over the years, but this is where it began. And I want her to want to be a super-hero, to fight for justice, and to help ensure safety for the downtrodden and fairness for the less fortunate.

Plus, she’s just so damned cute in it.

I picked up a copy of The Wonder Weeks on the advice of some friends with kids. I haven’t read much of it yet, and even those who recommended it to me often did so with some reservations. But what I have read has been interesting.

_{There’s an Amazon Affiliate link at the bottom of the page, so if this piques your interest, please consider clicking through and letting me get a few pennies for your purchase.} 

Anyway, the authors’ basic premise is pretty straightforward: there are certain periods of marked fussiness, sleep issues, etc, that for most children follow a pretty identifiable schedule in their early years. These periods coincide with major developmental milestones and shifts that your child is undergoing.

The authors identify 10 such periods during the first 20 months, and let parents know, to some extent, what to expect, and developmental “leaps” to look for. As a friend of mine with a two year said recently, sometimes it’s helpful to know why your kid is being a pain, and other times it’s small comfort.

The first “Wonder Week” is around five weeks. The baby is becoming increasingly aware of their surroundings. They’re likely to be fussier, clingy, and have trouble sleeping. After this fussy period, they tell you to watch for the baby to seem more aware and interactive. They may begin to smile, as well.

Well, around this Monday, a couple days into Week 5, Test Subject V started having trouble sleeping. She was fussier than usual, and during her evening fussy period, she was almost intolerably clingy.  Last week we made it through the night with only one feeding disruption, but that schedule was suddenly back out the window.  I wasn’t seeing any of these developmental weeks the book promised me, though, and I was about to toss it in the bin as more nonsense marketed at new parents.

And then, last night, Test Subject V went down early. Before midnight. And she stayed asleep until 6:30 this morning. Now, that alone is enough to have my wife and myself out on the porch in the 23° cold singing “Oh Happy Day.” Sleeping through the night, even for six hours or so, is cause for celebration. But. BUT. BUT. That’s not all.

The baby that woke up in my home this morning is not the baby that we put to bed last night. I mean, she is– this isn’t a changeling situation or anything. But her personality has radically altered, seemingly overnight. Suddenly, V is smiling. She’s playing with toys in which she has shown no prior interest. She used to track us with her eyes, but now there’s a new recognition in them when she does. When she gets fussy or upset, she seems far more manic– she wants results.

It’s amazing and eerie and awesome. Babies are so weird.

So I’ll continue to read The Wonder Weeks as V goes through the next few periods of fussing her way to a better brain, and I’ll report here how the book compares and contrasts with my lived reality.

Mom was right. There are some things that you just will never know until you have children. Like what it feels like to break six hours of sleep up into a nonconsecutive series of twenty minute naps.

Edited to add:

Nota Bene: this post was composed on my cell phone at 3:45am.

Borges somewhat famously wrote of a fictitious(?) “Chinese dictionary” in which animals were categorized as:

 (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (1) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.

Well, after the birth of my daughter, I’ve discovered a similarly enlightening set of categories. All matter in the world can be divided into two categories: “my baby” and “not my baby.” And when those categories get fuzzy, the world gets kind of terrifying pretty quickly.

I awoke around five in the morning today, needing to go to the restroom. There was something warm on my left arm. The room was dark. I felt with my right hand, wondering what was there: had I picked up the baby when she was fussing and fallen back asleep? This has happened before. Not outside the realm of possibility.

Reaching in the darkness, I could swear I felt my daughter’s hand. I felt a little further, wanting to make sure of where her little head was before I moved. Newborns’ necks aren’t very strong, after all! But I felt and felt, and couldn’t find her little nose or ears.

I felt back down, and again felt her hand, which is only ever limp and not balled into a fist when she’s asleep. I found it. Okay, so we have the baby’s hand. I then, with my right arm, trying ever so carefully not to disturb the baby on my left, felt for the switch to my bedside lamp. I couldn’t find it. Jesus, why do I keep so much crap on the bedside—and then CRASH! Shit, I knocked something down! I’m going to wake the baby!

Frantically I felt around further until I eventually got the light on. I then looked to my left arm, only to find on my left arm… Just a bunched-up ball of sheets, warmed by my body and slightly sweat-soaked.

The light now on, confused, I immediately ran around the bed to find my daughter peacefully asleep in her bassinet. Two categories of matter—”my baby” and “not my baby”—and when the lines get blurry, shit gets weird.

I stumbled sleepily to the restroom, and as I left, My Colleague was getting Test Subject V up for a feeding. She said the same thing had happened to her before. “It’s weird, right? It’s like phantom baby!”