Ben starts his waking up process with a complaining sort of noise: a few squeaks at first, then the usual baby sort of “eh, eh, eh,” noise that they all make before they start crying. My mom told me that my dad referred to this as “chuntering” when I started those noises as a baby. After some quick research, I found that it is an actual real word, and not just one of Dad’s Cumberland dialect terms. It means complaining or grumbling – the Yiddish equivalent is “kvetch”.
Right now, Ben is asleep, and not chuntering. Or crying. Or wailing. We took him for a walk earlier, and now he is unconscious. It’s great. I’m planning to leave him in his car seat (which fits into the stroller) to nap so I can get some sleep. As much as I love him, a newborn baby can really be a total jerk at times. Not on purpose, obviously. But when you’re trying to get him to settle down and take a nap, after six hours of nonstop feeding or rocking or burping, it feels like he’s being a jerk.
Dammit. I hear sqeaks that may lead to chuntering. Time to go look in on my son.
Jillian's Blog 