Crying Babies

Funny, we never photograph crying babies, do we?  This is JD’s coo-ing face.  He’s talking to us.  : )

John David, holding some buddies, and watching me re-organize Daniel’s closet…a never ending job.

  Today John David finally got his 2 month shots.  Yes, I realize we are a month late on this, and no, I did not do that on purpose.  First, the clinic was out of appointments due to not having enough staff this summer.  Then when he finally had his appointment last week, I was out of time and patience to wait for shots.  

  This clinic is weird.  You have the appointment with the doc, and then you go back to the waiting room and take a number and wait and wait for your turn for shots.  Last week at his appointment, we’d already been there an hour and a half.  By the time it was over, JD was hungry and cranky, and quite frankly so was I, so now who would blame me for bailing out of there and saving shots for another day?

  Immunizations didn’t go so well today, but I did learn that the clinic has a “lactation room”, and I found that ridiculously exciting.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fed the baby in the parking lot at the clinic because I didn’t know about the room.  Today I sat in peace, locked the door, and didn’t even have to cover.  

   What baby doesn’t cry when getting shots?  So of course, there was that, but the thing was JD was already overly tired when we dropped off Dan at school when he should have been napping.  Then the waiting room woke him up.  Then the shots.  Then after his post-immunization feeding, I whisked him back into his car seat and onto the road, and he just did not appreciate any of this.

  He cried in the car for the first 5 minutes because I naturally got behind the slowest driver ever.  There should be a sign you could put on your car that reads, “Crying baby:  need to drive without stopping,” but alas that would actually be a safety hazard, so we endured the wait until we hit the highway, and JD finally went to sleep…

….Until we got home, when my bringing him inside woke him up and he began crying yet again.  

  I got him as cozy as I could and rocked him patiently until he was out so hard that his pacifier fell out.  I love rocking babies when they are sleeping, so that wasn’t so bad.  Now he’s sleeping sweetly…..until I rudely jolt him out of his bliss to go pick up Dan in 45 minutes.  Poor baby.

   See, I just don’t do crying babies.  I believe if they are crying, they are crying for a reason, and it needs to be addressed.  Sometimes I’m too busy to address it right away (so many children here!), but I try to get there as quickly as I reasonably can.  The only baby I ever let “cry it out” was Joshua, our first, and that was torture.  It’s just unnatural.  To this day he has the hardest time of all of them getting to sleep, so I just don’t believe letting them cry it out is the way to go.  Maybe it works for some people, but it bothers me too much.

……as babies.  Toddlers are a different thing altogether.  I believe that once their needs have been addressed, and they are still crying, it’s called a fit, and fits must be ignored.

   So there you go, my two cents for the day.

  This may be a day of rocking my baby a lot.  This is his first round of shots, so that always makes me nervous for them.  We’ve never had any reactions to immunizations with the others,  other than red and swollen thighs, so hopefully all will be well.  

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Cute things I’ve heard around here this week:

Caleb:  You know, Joshua, when your mommy tell you something that you need to do, you should just do it.

(Thank you, Caleb!!!)

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Caleb:  (to Joshua) Remember what Dad said.  If we leave crumbs around the house, rats are going to move in here.

Joshua:  I’m not doing that.

Caleb:  Or mice.

           So you need to dump that in the trashcan.

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Joshua:  I got blue today.  (conduct grade at school)

Me:  You!?  (That almost never happens.)  What did you get blue for?

Joshua:  not paying attention

Me:  Ohhhhhh.  (not surprising at all, actually)  What were you doing, thinking?  That’s called day dreaming –when you’re sitting there thinking and not listening to the teacher, and then you get in trouble because they ask you a question and you have no idea what they’re talking about.  I do that too, but it’s not good.  Is that what happened?

Joshua:  Yes, I was day dreaming.

Me:  You’re going to have to be really careful to pay attention this year, then.

Caleb:  Yep, I guess this year I’m the one who gets oranges, and Joshua’s the one who gets blues.

(laughing inside my head at Caleb’s remark)

Man!  Caleb is on a roll this week!  Loving it!!!   …..Hope I didn’t jinx us by saying that!!