At the age of 45, writer Regina Brett wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer listing 45 lessons that life had taught her thus far. As a breast cancer survivor, many of those lessons were learned the hard way. Five years later she added five more lessons rounding her list up to 50 and turned her popular list into a book called God Never Blinks. I found her list to be entertaining, inspiring and thought provoking. I thought I would go through each of her lessons learned and write about how that lesson has or has not come up in my own life, now that I am 40 and feel old enough to have finally learned something.
"However good or how bad a situation is, it will change."
~ LESSON #31
Boy oh boy do I live this lesson every day now. Sammy is screaming his head off for some indiscernible reason for a good 30 minutes. I mean bloody murder kind of screaming. Like his mother is pulling off his toenails slowly kind of screaming. Which of course I'm not. I'm doing laps around my house and switching him from shoulder to shoulder as often as possible to avoid the one armed Popeye muscle a la those tennis players like Nadal. I'm bouncing, dancing, singing (maybe that's why he's screaming) and shushing. Oh when oh when will this ever end?
And then his eyes lock on to something random - an overhead light, the TV weather forecast, a piece of furniture he never noticed before. And the screaming stops. Its over. Afraid to awake him from his calm trance I just keep doing whatever it was I was doing when he stopped, unsure if my hopping on one foot or patting his back or humming that terrible jingle is what is keeping him happy or if it truly is just that dust bunny in the corner capturing his attention.
So there we are for another 10 minutes or so in peace and quiet, the TV stuck on the wrong channel because I'm horrified to disrupt the calm and chance reaching for the remote taunting me a mere foot away on the table. Just as my left arm is about to fall off from being frozen in a never ending Red Light, Green Light game with a baby, and a very hungry cat tickling my ankles looking for dinner, reinforcements arrive. Andy is home from work.
His arrival snaps Sammy out of his trance and he turns to see who has arrived. Spinning around, I hold my breath to see if he will start screaming again or remain calm. Andy greets his little Bumble with a big hello and receives a slow growing toothless grin that turns into a big smile and happy coo. Hurrah!
Relieved and eager for peaceful family time at the end of a long day I look down into my arms, just in time to see sweet Sammy's smile turn into a quivering chin and a pouting mouth that emits a long crescendo of a wail. Just like that, the switch has been flipped. In less than an hour, we have gone from hysterics to dead calm to joy to misery. Nothing is static in the world of a baby. Just as nothing is static for any of us. And as a result, I hand my precious little crying boy over to his father and head off with the cat for something to eat.
7 comments:
I remember these kind of days really well. I discovered that turning on the vacuum cleaner would also stop my son's crying. Needless to say, I did a lot of vacuuming for those first months! Enjoy every minute with Sammy whether he's smiling or crying. He's one precious baby!
I remember all of this too. Ugh. Thought I was truly and clinically going insane, especially with my son. He liked to go for rides in the stroller though, so I went to the mall at all hours and walked with the old people. I think he slept in his swing for the first two or three months of his life. But like you said, this too shall pass.
He gets everytime he shows up on yout blog! Daddies always get the best smiles.
I confess that this was the case with Gage for about the first 6 months. I feel your pain. I was so discouraged and worn down by the end of the day that I could not see the light at the en d of the tunnel. My warped brain could not appreciate that the hysterics would mellow.
Having said that, I'm sure you've tried everything but a switch to soy formula and convincing his doc to try acid reflux meds has made him a happy baby. Like night and day. I am opposed to meds in general, but if that is what is causing the screaming (and they really don't know what is) the meds can save damage to his esophogus later. I think they said we could try to take him off the medication at about 18 months.
yup, that's how it goes--and still we would never choose not to be a mother.
I'm not a mom so I can't relate, but I just wanted to say he is such a cutie!
I may have to buy a copy of God Never Blinks to get a good look at those life lessons. And may have to share my response in much the same way as you.
Oh, how I remember those wee one wailing days with my son. Hang onto the joyous calm moments of each day; that wee one will too soon be grown and gone with those moments but a memory.
That's truly a deep lesson to learn. Everything changes, whether you want it to or not. One of the biggest lessons of parenting (that I didn't learn until too late) is "this too shall pass" and then you'll want it back.
I have always hated change - simply because I've had so much more than my share. I'm so over it - but it keeps coming - for better or worse. The key is to find the things to enjoy in each phase because wasting time look forward or backwards just robs you of now.
Wow - I should be on Oprah! :)
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