The last 9 months have been some of the hardest of my life. And things aren't completely better, but I have a better outlook. Buddy has been my hardest baby yet. He is such a ray of sunshine and such a blessing in our lives, though. Hard, yes. But totally worth it. His life has just seemed to go from one hard thing to another. We've done a number of things to try to "figure him out" and some things have worked a little, some have been utter failures. It basically boils down to him being sad a lot. And he is very inconsistent. I think I might even be able to handle it better if there was consistency to his sadness. But this baby isn't consistent in anything. He'll be happy for 2-3 days in a row and we'll get our hopes up and then they will be dashed by him having a few really hard days and nights in a row. When he's sad, he's needy (like all babies). And he's a mama's boy, so that means if he's having a hard day, I don't get much done that day. And if he's had a hard night, I'm often a zombie the next day. It's been rough. It's also been hard on the kids. They have each had moments of freaking out when the stress is just too much for them as well. When I'm especially on-edge, it also puts them on -edge and there is a tension in our house that is palpable. It makes me sad. We just can't seem to figure out why he's sad. A few times we've known why it was worse than normal, but then those things end or get taken care of and he's still sad (just maybe not AS sad as he was when he was going through something obvious (like teething)).
BUT there have been so many blessings along the way. Brent and I have been humbled (children seem to be really good at doing that to us) and our patience has increased. Don't get me wrong, we still lose our patience more often than we'd like, but I think we freak out about the little stuff much less than we used to. Sometimes I think it's just because we're so exhausted, though, lol. When you're tired all the time, you choose your battles much more carefully so as not to drain energy that you don't really have. Another blessing has been watching my other children with Buddy. Having them has been a true life-saver. Sometimes when I am just spent and completely wiped out because of a hard night or when Buddy has woken up (again) after only a 20 min nap (after it took an hour to get him to sleep), one of the other kids will just come and take him from me. Tink is actually really good at getting him to sleep and AJ is practically like a second mom to him. They're all quite sensitive to his crying and often come and ask if they can help or try to distract Buddy by playing with him. They have grown leaps and bounds in their ability to be compassionate and loving. I have witnessed them being kinder to each other and they have all stepped up in the responsibilities that they have taken on. This baby is SOOOOO loved! That is one thing that he does NOT lack.......people that love him. And he is such a joy. He brings a lot of happiness into our family. He is my best cuddler, by far. He'll just nestle right into my chest and it makes my whole body tingle with love.
I'm a naturally protective mother (aren't we all?), but I've been amazed at how extra-protective I am of Buddy. Maybe because he seems to need me more. But when people suggest that I should just let him cry or stop catering to his needs, I get defensive. I don't believe babies are manipulative. He hasn't "got me figured out" like some people have suggested. Their way of communicating their needs is often through crying. Also, at this age, he doesn't have a sense of permanence. When I'm not with him, he doesn't understand that I'm not completely gone. So if I leave him crying in his room, he truly feels abandoned. Why would I let my baby think his mother has abandoned him? Why would I take away his sense of security? How does that lead to a healthy relationship?
*I will admit here to having a few times when I just can't take the crying anymore, so I've left him in his crib for a few minutes so that I can breathe, pray, and gather myself. But it's never been for long and only because my sanity was in question and sometimes it really is safest to just walk away until I can calm my emotions. Most of the time, though, I just have Brent take over for a while if he's home.
Now I will leave you with some recent pictures. My kids are growing up so fast it blows my mind. Summer is our season of birthdays. We're halfway through them. So some of the pictures are of birthday parties. This year is the year of odds. All my kids turn an odd number. AJ turned 11 in May, Roo turned 9 in January, Tink turned 7 yesterday, Lady will turn 5 the end of August, June turned 3 in June :), and Buddy will be 1 in September. I can't believe how fast the time has gone! I can't believe my baby's almost 1! I'm trying so hard to hold on to all of these moments, but I get distracted by the daily grind and my to-do list. This is one of my goals.....to care less about the to-do list and more about the to-play, to-watch, and to-love lists.
4 comments:
I love the pic of Tink opening her b-day present. Awesome reaction.
You have such a beautiful family, it has grown so much since you were in Ypsi!
I will keep you in my prayers, but you may want to look at food allergies as causing some of Buddy's sadness. We had all kinds of behavior changes due to our food allergies.
Nanci
Thank you for your kind words, Nanci. :)
Buddy does have sensitivities, if not allergies, to dairy. So that's been it of my diet since he was born. It's helped, for sure, but that's not the entire problem. So I recently went on a complete elimination diet to try to see if we could figure out what else it might be. For two weeks, Buddy and I ate nothing but veggies, fruit, and rice. It didn't change anything. I was really hoping it would. I thought for sure he was probably just sensitive to another food, but it doesn't look like it. I don't know what to do at this point. :(
Thank you for your prayers. That means a lot. :)
"Out" of my diet......not "it.". Dang auto-correct!
Post a Comment