Robin's Page

 

This week Robin Barker begins her regular granddaughter diary, and baby care column. Granddaughter Sage also joins us with a baby persepective on life.

Robin also shares practical advice on wrapping, bottle feeding of breast fed babies, crying and stranger awareness,

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diary - October 8, 2003

Sage at four months is a study in delicious circles. Smooth brown skin, circular thighs, belly, face and head. Serious cheeks, she faces her adoring relatives with composure and equanimity and a smile that breaks through like a surprise vote of thanks.

When she smiles she looks like her mother, when she cries she looks like her father.

From the moment she's born Sage's dad becomes a champion baby wrapper. There's not a lot about wrapping in Baby Love and the few attempts I make to wrap Sage fail dismally. Her arms break out, she cries loudly, her limbs flail around in space. Adam patiently shows me again. I watch attentively and take note. 'You know, a lot of babies don't like being wrapped...' 'Sage does.' Adam twists the tail of the wrap and tucks in under her chin. I suspect he'll write his own book.

When Sage is eight weeks old we travel in convoy to see her great grandparents four hundred kilometres up the coast and when Sage's mother nonchalantly breastfeeds Sage in the RSL Club dining room I nearly burst with pride. I look around and see a few of the old diggers glance and grin into their plates of steak and chips. Breastfeeding the first time around was, for me, a disastrous experience. It's wonderful to see Sage tucking in...a generational correction, taking place before my eyes.

Sage, Kim and I trot off to the early childhood centre where my friend and colleague Jann Zintgraff weighs Sage and chats to Kim. I sit outside and keep my nose out of their business - nothing worse than a sticky-beak grandma getting her two bobs worth in. Jann is unique amongst women and lucky are the mothers who are able to benefit from her wealth of knowledge, her sane advice.

Afterwards I take Sage home for some quality time with grandma while Kim goes home and stares into space...or has a nap...or washes her hair...or reads...or phones a friend (Kim's note - "or works on this damned website!").

We start out well. Sage smiles and squeals happily and makes interesting talking noises. We both blow spit bubbles (she likes that). I do raspberries and throaty sounds. She likes that too. We look at a book. She scratches at the cardboard. She talks to her mobile. Then she starts grizzling. Fine. Time for a nap. I do the wrap, not too inefficiently. She dozes off in the stroller.

A friend drops by with a toddler. We head off to the park. Not long after we get going a mighty wind blows up streaming leaves and hair and whipping branches. Clouds race across the sky, the toddler yells with delight, Sage wakes up and starts crying. We rush home pushing strollers uphill, bent over against the wind.

When we get home Sage takes one look at me, suddenly realises she's missing her mother and shrieks. Grandpa and I take it in turns to soothe her. We walk the floor, sway gently, sing softly. Her cheeks get redder and redder, her eyes swell up. I try her with a bottle of expressed breastmilk. She screams louder and spits it out.

A smile of glee hovers around my friend's lips. 'I'm really glad this happens to you too, Robin.' She bundles up the toddler and leaves with a cheerful wave.

What does Baby Love say? 'Leaving your baby to cry for twenty minutes or so is fine.' Really? 'If your baby won't take a bottle try leaving her and the bottle with Grandma.' Well...

Grandpa calls Kim. 'We're going to have to bring her back before DOCS arrive,' I hear him say as I bundle up Sage, her wrap and her bottle. As I'm putting her into the capsule I can feel the neighbours' eyes peering out from behind shutters - 'and she's supposed to be a guru.' By the time I get Sage back she's stopped crying and almost asleep.

I carry her in and, as I hand her over, she wakes up, smiles up into my face and makes spit bubbles with her lips. (Sage responds)

Past Diary Pages

Past Guru Pages

Disclaimer