trade-offs

One hour of "care" had bought me hours & hours of anxiety & stress, for both me & for X. What sort of trade-off am I making? I am not sure what I was thinking when I signed him up for day care in the first place. What a dumbass! Did I think he would adapt without tears & stress? -I guess I was hoping for that kind of luck, that he was at some sort of golden age when it would just click. A seems to think most kids have to go through this & that it can take several weeks (months?) for them to adjust & finally make it through the day without sobbing. For this I avoided letting him cry it out to gain a few extra hours of sleep? -so I could abandon him in the home of a stranger & let him cry for hours -and for possibly weeks on end? Hell no!

M & I hashed it all out last night in the wee hours before X woke from his 1st stretch of sleep. I hid in the dark of our room & sobbed out all my guilt & all my frustration with my stupid self for being so willfully negligent, so incredibly naive. My dear friend J reminds me that we live & learn, & I thank her for the reminder. I wish my stupid life lessons didn't have to hurt the only person in the world I want least to suffer any pain. I know I can't protect him from the myriad hurts in this world, but I should reasonably be able to shelter him from suffering at my hand. And yet I cannot.

Last night X was a miserable wreck. If he had had his way he would have nursed the whole night through. Every time I tried to extract my breast from his mouth he thrashed around & hollered pitifully about how "wowie" was "all gone." I was able to pat him back into sleep a few times, but his wakefulness was hard to fight. I reminded him gently that "wowie is all gone & it's time for sleep now, but you can have wowies when you wake up." He was obviously traumatized. He had clearly lost a little bit of the faith he had in me, faith that when he fell asleep, or when I wasn't nursing him, I was still there, still available, still his mama, still within the compass circle of his arms.