February 9, 2007 | Mama Smith

one of those

Hard days and good days. There’s bound to be a hefty mix of both in the coming months. Today was one of the hard ones. Right now, Brighton is screaming – and I means screaming – in his crib. He hasn’t done this in months. And it was never really screaming, at least to this intensity, before. And yet he’s been at it for the past 2 hours. Right after Matthew and I sat on our bed smiling saying, “Well, even though it’s been a hard day with Brighton, at least we have a break now. It’s so nice to know we have some stability with his bedtime routine and that he’s now down for the night.”

Ha. The irony.

Tonight he is letting out these fierce, angry, gutteral screams that makes me swear he’s going to puke at any moment. I’ve never heard these types of cries coming from my little B’s room before. It is absolutely tearing my heart apart. It just seems like he is one mad hornet right now.

Matthew and I have been going in every 5-10-15-20 minutes, curling him back up with his tiger and covering him with his blankie, reminding him it’s bedtime. He doesn’t care. He knows the baby is out there somewhere, stealing his mom and dad.

Levi has been a trooper through B’s rough day. He’s been eating, pooping and sleeping the day away. The poor little guy is fulfilling his role of second child well, just takin’ it easy and not demanding much from life yet.

Speaking of puking, the bad day vibes probably started last night after we returned home later than we thought after an almost 3 hour visit with my midwife. Side note: she’s amazing – sat and talked emotional stuff, family stuff, birth stuff with us for a good long while. We miss her already and wish the whole birth process wasn’t over quite yet…well, in some tiny way, at least. Anyhow, it was way past dinnertime, we were all irritable and faintish from low blood pressure. Levi hadn’t nursed in hours. So it was a race to get some sort of food dished out, the babe fed, Brighton fed, and do so without passing out in the process.

Matthew shovelled down his own spaghetti as he fed Brighton. I nursed with a napkin stretched over Levi so I could scarfed down noodles at the same time. And right as Mom began to sit down and eat her own plate of food…Brighton looks over at us in a panicky way and begins throwing up everywhere.

Down goes Matthew’s barely touched spaghetti as he scoops up B and heads off to the bath. As Mom and I look at ours, wondering if we can continue over the stench of vomit in the air.

Yes, it has been quite a circus around here. B ended the afternoon in meltdown after meltdown. Matthew tried to maintain some sort of energy through his sinus infection to be a loving dad in the midst of B’s tears over his tiny frustrations. Me and my hormonal self cried about how chaotic things felt and only regained some partial sanity through a good long Matthew hug. Mom gathered groceries from Whole Foods and Trader Joes and then continued cooking and cleaning upon her arrival home…after no sleep last night herself for being on baby duty and having spent all day deep cleaning dust from every nook and cranny in our house…that hadn’t been touched since the last time she was here for Brighton’s birth. Mom’s must get more amazing the more seasoned they are. I can’t imagine doing that right now. It’s all about survival for me these days.

So we’re all trashed, and in need of a big Savior tonight. As I put B down for the 3rd time tonight, I prayed that He’d be the Savior B needed and hold him close, when Matthew and I couldn’t be in so many ways.

All of this would just be too much without knowing I myself am being held. That this Tender Shepherd is leading us through all this, as crazy as it feels tonight. It’s all apart of his plan in my life, in Matthew’s life, in Mom’s life, in Brighton’s life, in Levi’s life.

I think He’s rocking B to sleep right now. We haven’t heard a peep from his room in 20 minutes. With Levi asleep on my chest, I think it’s time to head to bed myself.