Roll Out the Barrel

The other day, Laykha was in one of her fussy periods, and I was having a dickens of a time trying to calm her. Although I was following the "Cuddle Cure" steps in our Happiest Baby on the Block book (aside: this is a wonderful book for anyone who deals with babies - love it!), Laykha just wasn't calming.

I wasn't at my wits end just yet and was still thinking pretty clearly. I started thinking when Laykha was still in my belly, between exercising and riding in the rickshaws, she sure did a heckuva lot of bouncing around - not nice, soft swaying, but major shake, rattle and rolling. Since the whole idea behind the holding and swaying is to recreate life in the womb, I decided to kick up my swaying a notch. I turned on a polka and took Laykha for a spin around the room.

Wouldn't you know - that completely did the trick. The song had hardly just begun, and Laykha was pretty much dead to the world. It's amazing the things we find to calm our babies.

Laykha sure does attract a lot of attention out here. Whenever we take her out in public, just about everyone we pass tries to steal a glance at what's in our stroller. Many, mostly ladies, will walk right up to take a peek at Laykha. Some will ask questions - is it a boy or girl, how old is she - but most just look.

While just about everyone in any culture is taken by a new baby, I'm thinking this curiosity might be because they don't see too many babies this young here. The other day, I asked a colleague of mine if it was common here for new parents to bring their baby to the office to introduce him/her to colleagues, something often done in the States. He told me people here don't take their young babies out in public places - they avoid strangers seeing the new baby to "protect it from the evil eye." Guess Laykha will have to wait a bit to make her big debut.