Tessa MacDuff Pupius
Dear Lyra
Published in
4 min readOct 14, 2015

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Dear Lyra,

Happy 8 month birthday!

After a few relatively easy months, this month felt particularly challenging. You see, despite all our work to help you learn to sleep, you suddenly seem to have forgotten. Once again we find ourselves spending hours at bedtime easing you to sleep, only to have you wake a few hours later. It’s been really hard on all of us, but I worry most about you. You’ve been learning and growing so much that I know your little brain must need to rest. Although sleep eludes you, you carry on with smiles and cheerfulness and boundless energy. In fact, your dad and I seem to be the only ones feeling grumpy and sluggish.

One particularly difficult evening I spent ages trying to lull you to sleep with nursing and bouncing. Finally, you fell asleep in my arms. And as I lay you gently down in your bed, *blink* your eyes popped open and a big grin spread across your face as if to say, “Hey mama! I missed you!” But at that moment I felt so tired and so defeated I could not return the smile. I carried you downstairs, handed you to your dad, laid down, and cried. I tried to hide it from you, but your dad was wiser. Instead, he explained to you that Mama was sad and that it’s ok to be sad and to cry. I think it was a good lesson for both of us. We’re lucky to have him.

This month hasn’t only been struggles with sleep. In fact the struggles may have something to do with the tremendous developments you’ve been making. Your commando-crawling is getting faster and more coordinated. You climb up and over our laps, pillows, and stairs. Even more than ever before you are in constant motion. I thought this might be hard on Ada, since it is getting more difficult for her to outrun you, but actually the two of you have started playing together. You both enjoy grabbing one end of a toy and trying to pull it out of the other’s grasp. It’s really cute. You are both quite tenacious.

You have been getting more involved in mealtimes. We typically give you a few small soft pieces of whatever we are eating. Little bits of vegetables, crackers and cheese, pasta, bread, fruit, eggs, even a few nibbles of meat! You love to feed yourself and you’ve gotten pretty coordinated. Some bits still find their way to the floor, much to Ada’s delight. Between bites, you grin at your dad and shake your head at him. He returns the gesture and the two of you go back and forth like this for many cycles punctuated by giggles and eskimo kisses.

We traveled a few times this month too. We visited Seattle and you finally met your cousin Emma while she was home from college. We took a photo of your Nana with her grandchildren and the age spread is remarkable! That was the last time you were Nana’s youngest grandchild. Less than a week later Auntie Katie gave birth to your cousin Theo. We haven’t met him yet but he sure looks teeny. It’s hard to believe you were ever that small.

Before the end of the month we flew to New York. Your Grandma and Grandpa flew in from England to meet us there and take care of you while your dad and I attended our friends Matt and Francesca’s wedding. Although you were a little bit clingy with me, you really enjoyed playing, reading books, and making scrunched up nose faces with Grandma and Grandpa. You even fell asleep in your Grandma’s arms twice! We were all sad to say goodbye but it was somewhat of a relief to get home and know we don’t have any more travel for a while.

Although this month has ranked among the most challenging for me, it’s also been an opportunity for learning. Now more than ever I see the value in practicing mindfulness. I can fight the challenge or I can accept it. As I hold you, while you struggle to calm your body and surrender to your sleepiness, I have a choice. I can let the frustration bubble in — why won’t you just relax? what’s wrong? what am I doing wrong? Or I can let go, sing a song, and appreciate that you are still small enough to hold. Your dad reminds me to think of times like this like the weather — we can get mad or frustrated or sad when it rains but there is no point, we can’t change the weather. We are better off just accepting it and changing our plans. We may have been planning to sleep last night, but instead you and your dad went for a many-mile midnight walk and then you and I had an extended nursing cuddle. As he says, “Some day we will miss the rain.”

Love,

Mama

More photos at http://lyra.today

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