Nice Lungs(Continued) and Baby Zen

I've been spending quite alot of time getting to know my son.
One real challenge has been learning his cries.
All the books about child rearing have paragraphs dedicated to fussiness and crying. One thing I see repeatedly is how I am supposed to be able to tell the difference between hungry cries, pain cries, fussy cries, "change my diaper" cries, and so forth.

So far I can tell when his diaper is wet and when he's hungry. Everything else sounds like he's in incredible pain or hates me (see post below from Sunday for more on relentless crying).

Last night, Guy was working late so I took on dinner and caring for Spence while we waited. Magically at around 630pm, Spencer started what I refer to as "Something Is Bothering Me But For The Life of Me I Don't Know What" crying. He was off and on with the crying and by 8pm I had to take drastic measures or I would not have dinner ready for Guy. I read an article on crying and fussiness from the Mayo Clinic on CNN.com

I put Spence down in his bassinet and planned to leave him there for 15-20 minutes to see if he'd cry himself to sleep or calm down. I had the baby monitor on in the kitchen and watched Crying Spencer TV for 20 minutes while making spaghetti. It was intensely frustrating to say the least. Why would I subject myself to this? I don't know. I couldn't turn it off. He'd cry and scream and then calm down, take a few breaths and start all over again. Now THAT'S reality tv.

At the end of the 20 minutes I made Guy and I a plate of food each, wrapped in in tin foil and ran upstairs to check Spencer and make sure all was well other than the screaming. As I picked him up to check his diaper, Guy came home. Spencer seemed calm and normal to him, which is of course how it works when you're home all day with your baby. However, Spencer did calm just enough for us to eat and then operated on "semi-fussy" mode until his next feeding at 930.

My experience suggests that it may have been ok to let him cry. My gut and emotional oversensitivity suggests that it might be smart to take a Percoset 20 minutes before I do it again so that I don't feel like a terrible mother.

I've been so wrapped up in the day-to-day minutiae that I've had trouble getting to write about the little things...like today when I took him to the doctor for a check up (11.5 lbs and 23 inches, thank you very much) and he was a perfect little angel the whole time, and then took him to visit my old boss and he seemed to take to new environments without a fuss. I'm proud of my little man. Or how in the mornings I wake up bleary and tired but then my son's little adorable face is awake and bright and I'm filled with a ton of love for him like I can't explain.

There's also something Guy said that really stuck with me relating to my own personal neuroses: When you have a baby there are things that have to be done. There can be no worrying or projecting about it, it just has to be done and that's all there is. It makes one much calmer ultimately because there's no time to alternately wonder and worry. So, what will I do if he gets hungry when we're out? Feed him. What will I do if his diaper is wet? Change him. How and Where and When, etc. will fall into place. With a baby, certain things just are, and that's all.



Sunday June 13
Nice Lungs

It is 850pm, Sunday night. My son has been in his bassinet crying for the last 15-20 minutes. My husband and I are letting him cry. Guy has a hearing on Tuesday he has to prepare for and I am exhausted and need to rest cause he has to be in at work early tomorrow morning and neither of us can figure out what needs to be done for our son.

We're hating ourselves. Spencer has been fed, taken for a walk, changed repeatedly, put in warm clothes and swaddled. If we pick him up to carry him around he stops crying briefly then starts again. It's amazing.

I once had a voice teacher who explained to me how when we're children, our voices are pure and unaffected by self-consciousness; we scream with abandon when we have needs, regardless of who hears us. Our voices are strong because they come from deep within us and we have no conscious plan to scream. It just comes as we breathe. Amazingly as we grow and become self-aware, we also lose a little of our voices because thought comes into it - how loud we speak, how we hold our bodies: Women more specifically because of the attention brought by our upper bodies. Women actually tend to be a little more protective and hunch the shoulders.

Right now, my son is screaming and crying with that abandon and it's breaking my heart. I want to hold him and comfort him and I know it won't really do any good, will it? My instincts tell me to go to him and I have no idea if I'm spoiling him or not. It's killing me. Time to call some friends for a consensus...