Colic

For the first time, last night we could not figure out why you were crying, and were powerless to help you. It started around 6:15, as you were nursing. You seemed to get frustrated, bopping your head and flailing your fist against me - a newly acquired skill, this flailing baby fist. Your face turned red and your mouth opened and you screamed.

You screamed for almost three hours.

You weren't wet. You weren't hungry (or if you were, you were too upset to eat). You weren't hurt. You didn't have a fever. At one point I stripped you naked on your changing pad hunting for secret torments - a sharp pin, an itchy patch, a bug bite, anything, anything at all - and you stopped your crying and smiled gummily up at me.

We soothed. We walked. I started to freak out and stepped out to talk the dog around the block. When I got back you were still screaming. You dad stepped out to take a break and I pressed you naked to my chest and wrapped you up in a Moby and that helped a little, and you caught your breath for maybe ten minutes before you started squirming and the scream wound up again. I started to cry. Your dad got angry at me for crying. We were both exhausted and surprisingly terrified, because even though we both knew, intellectually, that babies do this sometimes, and crying won't hurt you, and you were safe and healthy and warm and dry and fed and maybe this was just due to overstimulation, or maybe an earache, or maybe you were just at a developmental moment of stress and you had no other way to cope, even though we knew all these things we - certainly I, I assume your dad too - were unprepared for how much actual pain your cries would cause us.

I realize, of course, there will be many times over the course of your life that you will be in a mysterious state of distress which I will be unable to soothe. You might have a tantrum, or later on, you will have your heart broken by some thoughtless young person. You will fail to get into a college you really want to attend, you will lose a job. These disappointments and pains are an important part of life. They help you recognize the magic of when good things happen - when you fall in love and it sticks, when you get a different job you like better. Today, you spent the early morning nursing and dozing snuggled up next to me, quiet, occasionally squirmy, mostly relaxed, just as long as you screamed last night. Right now you are dozing in your baby pouf after playing for a bit with your grandmother. The dog has just sniffed your hands to make sure you are safe, and you are. I am grateful for it.

Maybe that's one thing I can take away from your inconsolability last night - gratitude for the moments when we know exactly how to give you what you need to be happy.

That, and a sense that the pain shows me how much we truly love you.