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June 10, 2009
I'm a Mean Mom
I'm pondring in analogy form this morning.
I'm a baby. I get hungry. I can't say to you that I'm hungry, so I cry. When I cry you come and get me and fuss over me and feed me. I get content, I stop crying.
Then I need my diaper changed. I express this the only way I know how. I cry. You come and attend to my needs.
I learn that when I cry, comforting takes place. So sometimes I'm not hungry, or wet, or unhappy, I cry to say, "Please come pick me up and soothe me." And you do.
And I'm smart. Pretty soon I can have you running at all hours of the night, even though, technically, I don't need anything. I'm fed and dry and warm in my bed. You know this, yet you come running anyway, because that is what you do.
One day, however, you realize I as the baby need nothing, and you're going to let me cry myself back to sleep, so you can get some sleep.
It's hard.
I cry a little bit, and wait. You don't come running.
I cry harder. Nothing.
I don't see you in the other room, or just how hard it is for you to NOT come running. What you're doing is really helping me grow, but my immediate myopia keeps me from understanding that.
I start to scream. The crying didn't do it, so I crank it up a notch. That will bring you running.
Huh. Still no comfort.
I, as a baby, have a setting called "cry so hard as to go silent and turn purple." You've left me no choice. I turn the knob to purple. I won't have to wait long. You can't resist this.
Well, you've never been able to resist it in the past. Tonight though, I'm screaming my little lungs out. Can't you hear me saying, "Waaaaaaaaa."
Yes, little one. I hear you.
I have the monitor next to my ear. And a screen that lets me check often to make sure you are not tangled in your jammie feet, smooshed against the wall of your crib, or otherwise in real peril.
Yes, little one. I hear you. It may be a long time before you understand how I can love you at the same time I let you cry yourself back to sleep tonight.
Posted by Angela Tanner at June 10, 2009 07:20 AM