I did it again. I broke his trust. Almost 18 months of steadfast dedication down the drain. At least that is how it feels from this raw, immediate point of view.
I should have never brought him to A's today. This is so incredibly clear in retrospect. In fact, if I type the truth you'll probably think I'm a huge asshole too:
He's been teething something fierce, probably getting his 2-year molars (he gets them all early, lucky me -although, looking on the bright side, at least once these are done we're home free for a few years). He's been wanting to nurse all day & night & has been running a low grade temperature that climbs through the afternoon & into the evenings, hitting close to 100 degrees in the middle of the night before falling off towards normal in the morning. I know he's not sick, as there are no accompanying symptoms. It's definitely the teeth.
In any case, last night was another one of those nights. I did not bring him to day care yesterday since he had had a fever the night before & I wanted to be certain I was not infecting other kids with something mysterious. As with most day care establishments, I have to pay for day care when he's sick, even if he doesn't go. Cheapskate me was not going to keep him home two days in a row & piss $35 away for the week. It was already hard enough for us to suck up & agree to shell out cash for care in the first place. So I brought an over-tired, teething, almost-feverish baby to his brand-new day care. Bad idea.
The second asshole thing about it was that his buddy O was there today too. O has been having an awful time adjusting to day care, although to hear A tell it, that's pretty much par for the course with most kids. He sobs on & off all day, refuses to eat a thing & god save you if you try to part him from his pacifier & blanky. Poor guy. At risk of sounding super insensitive, O's troubles become my troubles when, in trying to tell X bye-bye, O sobs wretchedly & clings to my legs. He's attached to me in his own baby way too, seeing as I am someone he sees on a routine basis (being neighbors & friends with his mom).
Today, O was a tear-stained, puffy-eyed, snotty mess when we arrived & joined the gang in A's backyard. X took one look at him & turned to me with his brow deeply furrowed & his lip sticking so far out a bird could have pooped on it. That shit is contagious. I hung around a while & tried to get X interested in the sandbox, the big plastic car, anything. He wasn't going to have it. O was crying, & by god he was going to cry too. I told him "bye-bye" while he was sitting in the car, pretending to turn a key in the ignition. I promised to return soon & headed for the back door & the waterworks began in earnest. He shook the car in a frantic, seizure of anger & confusion. I slunk out of the yard, through the house, out the front door, all the while listening to him wail from the backyard. I peddled away hurriedly on my bike, shaken but assured in my assumption that A would let me know within 5-10 minutes if X was still crying (per our agreement!), at which point I would return & bring him home & consider the day a total loss. But I didn't hear from her. Half an hour passed & still no frantic text messages, so I assumed she was able to calm him & he was playing happily as he had in previous weeks. Not so. A full hour later I got the following text: "Just so you know he's still mostly crying. Moments of not crying. Chewing on his finger near molar area:( Doesn't want snack. As usual, I'm OK with it." As before, I texted back, hopped on my bike & was stumbling across the yard & into a hug within minutes.
I will never in all my life forget the image of my baby standing alone in the middle of a dusty yard, his shoulders slack with resignation, his eyes red-rimmed & puffy, tears soaking the collar of his shirt, & snot streaming down & into his mouth. Why wasn't A holding him? -Why was he standing there all by himself as though he's supposed to be able to self-soothe? -He doesn't have a pacifier! -He's never gone more than a minute (excepting one rare, tragic evening) without having his tears wiped away & his sobbing body cradled in a loving embrace! -He has no idea how to handle this long, awful hour of abandonment. I picked him up & clutched him to me, apologies spilling from my lips into his soft, sweaty baby hair. I offered him my breast & he took it & we sat for a while as I fought back tears. He calmed immediately, of course, but was reluctant to break off from nursing.
Later, I struggled for 3 hours to get him to take a nap. He typically naps around 11:30. I think I finally got him settled into sleep by 4. He refused to let me leave him. In the past, I would nurse him for a spell, & then say "wowie's all gone!" & he would accept that with a shrug & figure out some way to get to sleep without it. Not anymore. If I tried to pop him off I was met with flailing, screaming, wailing: "Mo wowie! -all gone! -Mo wowe! -all gone!" He threw his body around frantically as I tried to rock him to sleep in the glider. I had never before seen him quite so angry.
Bedtime was once a brief 1/2 hour routine but now it stretched into a tantrum-filled, screaming several-hour nightmare. We finally got him settled at 10pm. I dread what the night has in store...
1 comment:
Was O not left without a parent until later in life? We've had several young kids left at our house. The parents never hung around for more than 10 minutes and the kids never cried for more than 10 minutes (and 10 minutes would be on the very long side - usually it was no crying to a minute or two). All kids are unique, but perhaps exposure to other safe environments early on makes it easier to adjust later. As far as I know, R has never cried in any of the many places we've left him (of varying quality). Perhaps the early experiences of being left taught him that 1. He'd be safe in the places we left him. 2. We'd always be back. I'm sorry this has been so rough on you. I know you could use (and deserve!) a break.
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