Baby Sudoku

Leah and Riley turned 10 months old this week, and I think they’re already reaching the point in their lives where they think their parents are complete idiots. Back in the old days (with the “old days” meaning, like, six months ago), it used to be so easy to figure out what the girls wanted. When they cried, we knew that they either wanted: (a) milk, (b) a diaper change, (c) a nap, or (d) to release some gaseous emissions. Oh, and there was possibility that (e) they wanted you to stop playing with your freaking Ipod Touch and pay attention to them. If we were watching the signs, it was usually pretty easy to figure out which remedy was going to work. For example, crying plus eye-rubbing equals (c): nap time. Crying plus stinky smell in the air means (b): time to change that diaper. And so on.

The problem is that now we’re at a stage where if Leah and Riley want something, there are so many things that they MIGHT be asking for, and not enough ways for them to signal for exactly what they want. Right now, the thing that Riley’s doing all the time is looking urgently into my eyes, grabbing my forearm, and saying “meh!” I have not yet figured out what the heck this is supposed to mean. The first time Riley did this, I thought she wanted to use my arm to pull herself to a standing position. So of course, I held my arm rigid so she could stand up, but this is not what she wanted at all. Riley just looked at me impatiently again, gripped my arm again and said “MEH!” Then I guessed that she wanted to be picked up, so I picked her up. Riley then made a deeply frustrated groan as if she just got off the phone with a clueless customer service agent, then squeezed my forearm and shook it around and said “MEEEEEEEHHHHH!” If there was a cartoon thought bubble over her head, it would've said "You, sir, are an idiot. Can I speak to your supervisor?" (And we all know who daddy's supervisor is.)

We've had similar issues with Leah, except I'm starting to realize that Leah pretty much just wants to "walk" 24 hours a day. So squeezing daddy's arm and saying "meh!" means "I want to walk". Waving her arms up and down like she's trying to fly means "I want to walk". Heck, you can safely assume that even the stinky gaseous emissions means "I want to walk". Girl likes to walk. But once in awhile, Leah doesn't want to walk and she gives us some weird coded signal and waits impatiently as mommy and daddy try to figure out what the heck it means.

Mommy and daddy are college-educated people with Masters degrees but we have yet to break the baby code. It's like a fricking Sudoku, I tell ya. And not that "Easy" level kind where most of the numbers are already filled in -- I'm talking the hard kind. You know, the kind that frustrates you until you give up and say "meh."