I don't know if you've ever heard of it. I know I hadn't until a few months before Evelyn was born. I don't know who named it, where it came from, or when it started.
Tummy-Time.
Is there even supposed to be a hyphen in that word? I don't know.
Regardless, it is my daughter's least favorite fifteen minutes of the day.
Wait. No.
This fifteen minutes ruins her day. Completely.
What happens is, during tummy-time, you take the infant and lay them down on their stomach. The benefits are numerous, and I'm not sure anybody really knows why we're supposed to do it. The reason being one of my coworkers insists that it is so a baby's head doesn't have a Frankenstein like flatness to the back of their skull from constantly laying on their back, and from the physical therapist it is to strengthen their necks so they can look up and develop their muscles in their neck and back, and from at least one doctor it serves to help their motor skills in looking up and build arm muscles.
I think its safe to rule out the Frankenskull theory, but the other two? Well, they better get their stories strait.
Even so, Evelyn despises these moments when she is forced to do something every member of my side of hates with an unnameable fury - exercise.
Well, it's not so much we hate it... we just seem to not do enough of it. So... there's that.
Still, she hates it. She cries and screams and makes these noises I am sure planet earth has not been subjected to since the age of dinosaurs. Jennifer insinuated today that she shrieks like a pterodactyl. My question is, "How does she know what a pterodactyl sounds like?"
Evelyn hates it, but she does seem to enjoy being coached. The more we cheer her on, it appears, the more she works without the banshee screams. I used to picture myself standing on the sidelines of the Rose Bowl, cheering on my players and instructing them with mind-blowing offensive plays. Today, that dream lives on in tummy time with great strategies like, "Just look up, Evie! You can do it," "Good girl! Now push yourself up a little higher," and "Slot right, 32 Blast on 4, ROLL!"
She's still not rolling, but we'll get there with more practice. Maybe some two-a-days.
Anyway, that's my fun blog on tummy-time. It will get easier, and she's not doing bad at all.
So that's the joys of Tummy-Time.
