Wednesday, January 21, 2009

I assure you there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this.

Such a cliche, but so true: They grow up so fast. Kayla's 6-month birthday came and went. She hardly seems like a baby sometimes. It often feels more natural to refer to her as "my kid." She can scoot around on her tummy, lift herself onto all fours, and sit for short periods of time without support. She is probably days away from crawling. She bores easily, but remains cheerful and interactive as long as she has something new and interesting to hold her attention. And the other day, she gave her first hickey.

Don't worry, she gave it to me. She was having trouble getting to sleep, I suspect due to some teething pain. She didn't want to nurse, rocking wasn't helping, and she would only chew on her teether for a few minutes before crying again. I scooped her up in my arms to comfort her and she latched onto my neck. When I tried to give her a pacifier she just kept spitting out. So I let her suckle on my neck for a few minutes and she finally fell asleep.

The next morning I noticed the hickey. I wore a high-collared shirt to work and figured no one would notice. I told one co-worker the story and she laughed. Later that day while sitting around with 5 or 6 other co-workers I said to her, "I can't believe no one noticed the hickey." She said, "No one noticed, or no one said anything?" So I asked the group and they all said, "Oh yeah, I noticed, but I didn't want to say anything."

I explained how I got the hickey putting Kayla to sleep and not in some frenzied teenage make-out session, and went home wondering how many of the dozens of people (co-workers, bosses, vendors, strangers) I'd interacted with that day now have a hysterically inaccurate idea of what my weekend was like.