The Big Cry

By Savannah

I have been looking forward to today. My good friend and LMT Kristy came over to give me a wonderful in-home massage (as a gift). My neck and low back have been so achy since the two-day labor/birth ordeal and lack of sleep.

Kristy arrived, the boy was well fed and tucked into Papa's arms and we were upstairs to relax....
AHHHH...

Until: SCREAM!!!

Liam is howling. Despite the heater, the cd playing, the fact that we are upstairs with the door closed, I can hear him loudly crying. I can also hear Papa Bill walking, shooshing, talking to the boy in his best calming voice. I think, this will work. He will calm down and I will relax.

Kristy is an awesome therapist. She is working deeply on my sore back and I am breathing with her strokes.

But baby is still crying. Not just crying. He is hysterical. And he has never done this before.

There is something so instinctual in the mama desire to fix the crying. I knew that popping a nipple in his mouth would probably do the trick. But, I am relaxing and the boob-less Papa is caring for his son.

Bill is one of the more patient people I know. He is like a rock. I know I can always count on his calm, easy-going ways to mellow even my most fiery mood. I knew he was holding that baby, listening to him cry and trying all his soothing tricks.

And yet, I wanted to jump off the table and fix it myself.

I remembered when Caleb was a baby. He was fussy for the first three or so months and cried a lot if not with me. I called him (for many years actually) my Cling-on.

Now, he is grown. A teenager and no longer my sweet, clingy boy. This reminds me how short these days of baby-land really are. How the long nights, the moments of comfort on the couch, the little snuggled body against me will only last for a blink of the eye.

So we can make it through the crying moments and maybe even relish them a bit if we just remember they will be over soon and take with them all the sweet tenderness of baby Liam.

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