Thursday October 1, 2009

Last Thursday morning I was lying in bed trying to summon enough courage to get up and face another day. Liam had been progressively more fussy for days and days and days culminating in a very, very bad day on Wednesday that ended with a long screaming session as he tried to fall asleep. He woke two hours later and cried heartbreakingly again then finally crashed for the night. Most of my days begin with hearing Liam crying almost before he wakes up. I run up the steps trying to diffuse things with happy thoughts only to have him yell even louder when he sees me.


The day goes on with tremendous amounts of grumpiness. A lot of days I either carry him on my hip as I try to do something or on the worst days I sit on the floor desperately trying to get him distracted with something. I find it very draining to have to work so hard at keeping a semblance of happy. But if I get sad, he gets ten times worse. It feels like that Precious Moments saying, “Dear God, if I give all my love away, will you give me a refill?” Except in my case it’s happiness, smiles and laughter. I’m not the only one with a fussy child. How do you all maintain some level of joy when your kids keep the plug of your feeling happy tank pulled and you feel it all draining out the bottom? If he’d give me some time to get my reserve built back up it would help.

Back to Thursday morning. I was feeling pretty low to say the least and as I thought back over the last few days I could not think of any sweet moments. I’m sure there were a few; but they felt buried to me. I told God, “You know, if Liam would die, I’m just not sure I’d have any good memories of the very recent past. Can you please at least give me some sweet moments to remember in my days?” (*disclaimer: I don’t think he’s dying. But when your child is sick all. the. time, some pretty awful possibilities can stare at you in the dark).

(look at his eyes squinting b/c he’s afraid the plate will fall back on him!)
Liam woke up that morning happy and sweet as any baby I’ve known. All day long was happy. Just happy. He played with toys and with Adam. He often came to me and when I picked him up he laid his head on my shoulder, patted my back with his extra wide thumps, and cooed his little “I love you” sounds. I could hardly believe how good it felt to be a normal mom! The next day went downhill fast; but at least I’d had a reprieve.

(the first time Liam and I got to go to church in 8 weeks! As you can tell the boys are thrilled. Liam is crying b/c I took him from his daddy and Adam is sullen because he doesn’t want to take a picture with MOMMY. Just with daddy. You know. All the boys. Every day just feels like Mother’s Day around here! The appreciation level is almost toxic.)
Monday he cried all day long and it turned to screaming if I put him down long enough to change the washer and dryer. We saw the doctor that afternoon who said he thinks he just has a virus. Today for the first time since last Thursday, Liam woke up talking happy sounds in his crib. I heard Adam wake up and they played in Liam’s crib for awhile. Liam giggled when he heard me coming up the steps, ate his breakfast without complaint, and is happily playing with toys alongside Adam who is “weedeating.” Days like this are a gift I hardly dare to dream about; but oh, how I soak up every minute. I watch Liam smile and talk and memorize the moments.

God has been answering my prayer and helping me to be more aware of the sweet moments in the bad days. Well, ok, not days like Monday. But there have been so many darling little moments for me to tuck away on the other days.

On Sunday afternoon I jumped up to start getting some food around for a quick supper before church. Liam saw me and immediately goes over to the drawer where I keep the plates and bowls and started hauling the dinner plates over to the table one at a time. It was too cute. He took out every single dinner plate and piled them on the table then stopped. (I thought for a minute he was going to take the luncheon plates and bowls, too.) When we were ready to eat I stood by his high chair and told him to come. He started to run toward me then suddenly stopped and ran the opposite direction around the island. I was ready to reprimand him, but decided to watch for a minute. He hurried to the oven, grabbed his bib, and barreled back to me.

Liam wants to do everything we do. When it’s time for his bedtime snack, he wants to sit on a big chair, not his high chair. When it’s time to get ready for bed, he wants to brush his own teeth. If I have a bucket of cleaning water and turn my back for one second, he grabs the rag out of the water and takes it dripping wet to the windows and scrubs them down.

Saturday night Adam and I ran to town because I was completely out of yogurt and milk for Liam and needed a few groceries for us the next day. It was dumping rain and the roads were terrible in the dark. Adam was sure our brakes were going to give out and seemed terrified. After a few questions I realized he thought brakes just gave out for no reason. We’ve shown him the escape ramps for trucks on the mountain and he somehow did not connect the fact that it happened to semis and only when their brakes overheat. Later when we dashed madly out of Kroger I told him to jump in quickly so he doesn’t get soaked. I was frantically unloading bags and ready to run the cart back when Adam piped up seriously from the back seat, “Mommy, I wish that would have been my responsibility.” On my way back to the car, I met up with a vehicle pulling into the parking space I was running across. I zig zagged my way through and sighed with relief to be back in the car where it was dry. Adam was watching wide eyed. “Did you get run over, Mommy?”

After we got out of Whole Foods I told Adam that what you really need on a very rainy shopping trip is a Starbucks coffee. He yelled his agreement pretty quickly. Since it was already pushing 9:30 and I really did not want to make another stop, I called David who agreed to make extra strong decaf coffee by the time we got home. I filled our mugs about 1/4 of the way full with milk and heated it before filling them the rest of the way with coffee and adding a packet of hot chocolate mix. We squirted cool whip on top and Adam was duly impressed. Liam, who was eating goat milk yogurt, was not. He’s really starting to notice when our food is different from his and will beg to get out of his high chair, settle into David’s or my lap, grab our fork, and try to help himself to our food. It’s cute but pitiful all at the same time. Sometimes I can’t replicate ours in a Liam-friendly version, but this time I had an idea.

I filled a mini princess house mug like our big ones with goat milk and squirted chocolate syrup in to make it the same color as ours. He was thrilled beyond words. The pleased, pleased look in his eyes every time they surfaced above the cup made me realize I need to work harder at bringing more variety and normalcy to his diet. Maybe he is only sixteen months old, but he is old enough to notice the difference. And unfortunately, not old enough to understand the why. But at least there are sweet moments in the day to remember. And now I’m off to soak up a few more of them.

(PS There are a few more photos in my photo blog. Just trying to be kind to my friends with dialup!)

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• Friday October 2, 2009 →