{Real Mom Life} Screamy Mornings

Mamas, have you ever had one of those mornings where your child screams for no apparent reason? Today was one of those days for me.

Some days I just cannot figure out what's wrong. Please tell me that's normal? I tried everything! Dirty diaper? Nope, clean. Hungry? Nope, just fed her. Gassy? Burp, burp, toot, toot, still crying. Tired? Passy in mouth, rock while humming Brahms Lullaby, still crying. And y'all, when I say crying what I really mean is SCREAMING. Like a banshee.

Now, I'm not the kind of mom that lets my child Cry It Out. At least, I have never attempted the CIO method. Usually Maylin can get pretty worked up pretty quickly, like to the point where she's choking and red faced, so I don't often let her get upset to that point. However, I know that other mothers swear by the CIO approach, and the baby typically calms his own self down and goes right to sleep all by his little self.

So. After an hour and a half of Maylin SCREAMING (like a banshee) while I did everything in my power to calm her, I thought to myself, "Why not try to let her CIO?" I mean, geez, I'd been trying to calm her down all morning long by doing everything a good first time mom knows to do. I got up from the rocker and took her downstairs to her Pack-n-Play where she sleeps at night and laid her down on her back. And then I walked away. And the SCREAMING continued.

Oh, and did I mention that there were certain time-sensitive errands I had to run this morning? There were. In fact, I'd woken up early to get the both of us dressed and fed before 9:00 AM (which is an accomplishment). My husband is a big advocate of "doing the hard things first" during the day and being an intentional manager of your time, so I was following his inspiring advice and attempting to get all my errands done before he came home for lunch. Also, these were errands I had to take care of today. Not tomorrow, not later on in the week. Today. And I'm ashamed to say the knowledge that I had to get these things done made me very frustrated with Maylin and all her SCREAMING. So in retrospect, trying the CIO method for the first time this morning was probably not the best idea.

So, Maylin is SCREAMING and I'm doing my best to tune her out so I can get all of my things together for errands. I'm running through my checklist: got the check; got the library books; got the UPS package; got the diaper bag...Wait, why does the diaper bag smell like soured milk? And that's when I realized an entire bottle of breast milk had spilled in the diaper bag, soaking and souring all contents inside. I wanted to sit down and cry.

This is when I found myself walking in a dreamlike state to Maylin's Pack-n-Play, scooping her up, and clinging to her with all the tenderness of a mom who is frustrated, frazzled, ear-sore, who smells like sour breast milk, and whose plans have been thwarted. I picked her up very gently. With a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes I climbed back upstairs to her nursery, sat in our comfy glider, held her close, and rocked.
I let go of all my errand plans and just rocked. And you know what? In a few minutes we had soothed each other.

I realized that sometimes when my morning has been crummy, I need to just sit and hold my baby. That sometimes, I need my Maylin just as much as she needs her mama. I believe it was this realization that finally calmed both of us down.

I did eventually get my errands done, and she was a smiling, cooing angel the whole time we were in public. And maybe one day I will try the CIO method again to see if my Maylin will be one of those super-babies who know how to self-soothe, but not on a screamy morning. On those mornings we'll just hold each other and rock.