Hayes will be 6 months next week…and what a rollercoaster it
has been. I always say in my
blogs, that there are many other hardships that our family could encounter, but
at the time…this was very difficult.
I was reflecting back on my blog post about colic and how it
was one of the driving forces for me to write again. It was and still is a topic I feel very strongly about in
parenting and how more information and support needs to be given to
parents…especially new ones.
You see a lot of crazy things on the news, but the worst
ones, the hardest to swallow, are the injustices done to infants or small
children. You ask yourself “How could anyone do that to a baby or
child?” People are quick to judge
(most of the time the person was just cruel and evil) and don’t know the whole
back-story or are not empathetic to the situation. I do not in any way condone wrongdoings to babies or
children, but my eyes are much more open to reasons why things are done. Lack of sleep, screaming and non-stop
crying, lack of a support system, single-parenting, traumatic labor and
delivery…the list goes on.
I still say if
you can’t joke about things, then you are never going to get through the hard
stuff. Ryan and I officially lost
our minds when Hayes was around 6 weeks old. His screaming wouldn’t let up, he was never happy and we
were beyond tired. We ran to the
Dr. on a Saturday morning half-joking about thoughts we were thinking, but would NEVER do. Our Dr. said “It
is good to make humor in a dark time, because this stuff is awful.” She also mentioned that we were
educated people who had coping skills…that was the best thing she could say and
I have continued to tell my friends and family this. Ryan and I know we would never do anything to harm our kids
because we were smart enough to know the difference between thinking of it in
desperation of feeling terrible (completely sleep deprived and overly
frustrated) versus acting on it in impulse because we didn’t know better. I did lots of reading on Purple Crying as they call it, which is
a resource for parents coping with colicky children and strongly recommend their website. Since there is no known cause or cure for Colic…all you can do is hope that it gets better and try to survive.
This is exactly what Ryan and I did. Any little thing that Hayes did in a
positive manner…I celebrated like it was the fourth of July. We continued to take turns holding or
interacting with him to give each other a break from the bad times. We got some reprieve when he started
daycare…even they saw his “~isms” and how they could make your heart rate pick
up a notch. We have finally gotten
some peace with him and mass amounts of time in sheer joy. Hayes will smile, laugh (giggle) and
even babble. He loves to be tickled,
to roll all over the floor or to get hugs and kisses by Hallie. She can also finally enjoy his new
personality and how he looks to her with curious eyes. I feel that we are in a far better
place then we were even two months ago.
He sleeps through the better part of the night. He is still a terrible daytime napper,
but we are working on it. I find myself wanting to just hold him out of want because now I know how fast time will fly by and he will be non-stop energy.
I will be honest, and this sounds terrible, but during those
first few months, I had a really hard time liking him. I LOVED him, but liking him on a daily
basis was just plane difficult. He
was an innocent to that, I was exhausted…but things are on the up and I am so
thankful that Ryan and I could get through it together with lots of patience
and prayer.
For those of you pregnant or new parents and you think that
your child may be colicky, get to a Dr. just to get some peace of mind, read up
about Purple Crying and do know that
it will pass eventually. You will
feel rage, frustration and total exhaustion…but there will come a time when you
can enjoy all the love that this child emits.
This was Hayes just moments after being born. You can so obviously see his dislike for what is going on. We got the pleasure of living with his distaste for the outside world for the past 6 months.
This is Hayes now. Don't you just want to squeeze, hug and love him?
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