Here We Go Again . . .

Yesterday, my two girls had been anxiously waiting all morning to go to the Splash Park for Mom & Me. I'd told them about it during breakfast, then wanted to kick myself for it the rest of the morning, as Isaac screamed for a solid hour. All I could think was, "I don't want to take him in public, I don't want to take him in public . . . " Annie very sweetly took in the whole situation and said, "Mom, I know Ellie and me want to go to Mom & Me, but if today's not a good day, that's OK. I understand." It made my heart melt and break all at the same time.*

It's hard for me to listen to one of my babies scream. It's harder when I'm surrounded by other people also getting to 'enjoy' my child's frantic cries. It's hardest when I'm surrounded by people I know listening to the screaming. I try not to be embarrassed, but I am. Not just of the noise and distraction of a freaked out baby, but of what I think people must think. Or what they do think and then say out loud to me. I can't even count all the times a well meaning stranger has approached me in a grocery store and said something 'helpful' like, "Oh, listen to that poor baby . . . she must be hungry . . . [in babyish tone] Are you hungry? Do you wish you were at home being fed instead of out shopping?" It's always made me want to either yell, or break down in tears, and exclaim, "I don't just take them out while they're starving for the fun of it! I fed them RIGHT before we left. They also have a clean diaper, have been burped and just had a nap. Sometimes babies just cry. Especially mine!" There's this loudly spoken idea (vs. a non-spoken one) that Mom's 'just know' what their babies need. That Mom's inherently understand each little cry, that they can decipher what they mean as clearly as if they had a Mom to Baby translation book. This has always been hard for me, a source of deep guilt, 'cause when my kids are in the throes of colic, I don't have clue one what the heck they want. I go through it all, I check the diaper, feed the baby, and try and get them to sleep if the timing makes sense -- but mainly I feel like I'm just taking stabs in the dark, guessing at anything that might be causing my child to be unbelievably grumpy. People expect Mom's to know what to do, to know what baby wants. And when you're the Mom who suddenly gets outed as being clueless, it's a bit humiliating.

My friends, family and neighbors know I've had colicky babies. Most everyone's been really sweet, supportive and sympathetic to what we went through with our girls. But, to have yet another one starting to show signs of, at a minimum, extreme fussiness, is discouraging and oddly embarrassing. Like I can't help but wonder if people are thinking, "Three out of three kids . . . must be something she's doing." I ask myself a thousand times a day what I'm doing wrong. 10-20% of babies are supposed to be colicky. It's looking like 100% at our house. I'm throwin' off the curve here, and I can't help but obsess about what I've done to cause it. I have watched people sit there uncomfortably as they listen to my baby cry, silently wondering why I couldn't do more for him. The worst though is when someone will be holding one of my babies, and the screaming ends up becoming too much, so they give the baby back to Mom, since that'll calm them down, right? Um, no. Everyone expects that when you hand a fussy baby to Mom, they'll settle in happily against Mom's chest and instantly become silent -- or better still -- coo in delight. Yeah, when you hand one of my screaming infants back to me, they pretty much just keep screaming. It's mildly humiliating to me when it suddenly dawns on someone that I can't do anything to calm my baby.

I had this fairly mellow baby for weeks with Isaac, then the last four or five days, Isaac has started screaming a couple hours of the day. He was the baby that when fussing could be handed back to Mom and he'd just melt and quiet instantly. Not so much anymore. I'm as powerless to calm a freak out as most anybody else now. It's hard. He's still taking great naps and is getting a lot of sleep (far more than my girls ever did.) Although he has doubled the number of night wakings, which was really sad after he had one 6 hour stretch between feedings one night, then the next night he woke up almost hourly. So nighttime sucks -- but what's hardest is watching him scream during the day. We've tried, well not everything, but almost. Everything we can think of. Swings, bouncy chairs, slings, front carriers, long walks outside, long walks in Costco, binkies, nursing repeatedly, vibration, noise, blow dryers running, vacuum going, attempting a milk-free diet for me, tight swaddling, loose swaddling, side laying, stomach pressure, bouncing, singing, dancing, jiggling, skin to skin, cuddling . . . and some of it will calm him down some of the time. But what works constantly changes. And sometimes nothing calms him down. He went from sleeping happily in his bassinet, being placed there while drowsy then dropping off into slumber land after a few minutes, to taking 50 minutes to fall asleep (while 'barely keep my eyes open' tired) in a swing or sling. I felt like we were 'doing everything right' with him . . . and it was all working so well, until it suddenly doesn't anymore and I feel lost and clueless and a little desperate.

This probably explains why I haven't blogged all week. What can I write, "Another crappy day of screaming and tears . . . mostly on the part of the baby, but the girls and I all contributed too." It just gets kinda depressing to record, "Baby woke up every hour all night, then screamed most of the day" over and over again. I thought we'd dodged this bullet this time. He was calm for so long. He went weeks without showing any of the 'signs'. And suddenly we're hearing full blown screaming for hours a day. And I feel a little duped.


*Oh, and we did make it to the Splash Park, and stayed a whole hour. Isaac screamed for awhile, but eventually fell asleep in his sling. Until he woke up 20 minutes or so later, freaking out. Then I decided to take them all home. But, the girls were able to go and have fun with friends for an hour or so, despite my fears of taking Senor Fussy Pants out into public. Go me!