Scatterbrained, with Heavy Fog.

Eleventy-One Things About Me, #50: I'm not as smart as I used to be.

Note: This is a post I wrote several months ago--actually started writing before I knew I was pregnant. Things have gotten a bit better since then. My doctor told me that it's quite common for pregnancy to make cognitive issues worse; that "pregnancy brain" is a real thing even for people who don't have underlying cognitive issues in the first place. The first trimester was the worst; and was the most frightening since I didn't know there was the factor of pregnancy exacerbating things.

Things have improved a bit, or I've gotten better at coping, since I wrote this . . . I've gotten lost while driving far less the last few months, and have been able to get places in at least somewhat of a more timely manner, for instance.

But as we approach the baby's due date (5 weeks away as of tomorrow!), I know that once the sleep deprivation of having a newborn hits, it's almost certainly going to get worse. Massive sleep deprivation tends to have a hugely debilitating effect on me, which is one of the reasons I've basically stepped out of nearly all commitments for the next year or so. I'm planning ahead for the baby by not planning anything at all. My plan is to stay home, rest, and do as little as possible for as long as necessary. :)

I was conflicted about posting this, but I finally decided to go ahead and put it up. Maybe it will help some of my family and friends understand a little better.


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"You're just so scattered!" the voice on the phone screamed. "You never have it together; you forget things; you're so slow and I always have to wait for you! How could you not have all the information together when you asked me to call you??? You make me crazy!!!"

"I'm sorry," I wept. "I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me you're sorry! I don't want to hear that! Just--just stop being so scattered!!! I want nothing to do with you any more. I've had enough of you. I don't want you in my life, and I don't want any dealings with you, ever again!"

More incoherent screaming, and then the phone went silent as the person on the other end slammed it down.

I had tried to share some upsetting news that I thought they would want to know ASAP, and that I felt it would be better for them to hear from a friend than to find out online or in the news. I wanted to shield them, to make the blow softer. But, although I had gone over and over the information before the phone call (both aloud to my husband and silently reading it repeatedly to myself), and had pulled up a web page with the information so I would have it in front of me before I sent a note asking them to call me, my efforts only backfired.

Between the time when I'd first started trying to contact them and when they called me back, several hours had passed, and in the interim my brain had crashed.

I'd opened my mouth to say the name and thought I had said it correctly, but the voice on the other end of the phone told me that I'd said a different name and was yelling at me wanting to know which it was. I didn't think I had said the name wrong, but it was quite possible that I'd said my sister's name instead of my own middle name; the name of someone who had been killed in a tragic accident. Sometimes what comes out my mouth is a different name or word than what was in my brain or what my eyes were reading, and it often happens without my even realizing it.

At that moment the internet crashed (service is spotty out here in the boonies) and the screen went blank both on my phone and on my desktop. My mind went blank with it. I simply could not retrieve the information. The dreaded brain fog and short-term memory loss hit, and the more stressed I got the more my inability to process or communicate information suffered. The harder I tried the worse it got. Even if I'd had written it down on paper, at that point there was no guarantee I would have been able to make sense of the marks on the paper.

I didn't blame them for being upset; I felt terrible for botching something like that so badly, and said so.

I frantically tried to get the internet back up and pull up the information, apologizing and trying to explain what had happened. But by then my "friend" was screaming and yelling, and then hung up on me.

I tried contacting them a few times to explain and apologize, but it did no good. The relationship was gone.

"Just stop being so scattered." If only I could.

A few years ago I had hired an acquaintance to do some work in the yard, and was trying desperately to communicate with him, but having difficulty understanding what he was trying to say, figuring out and communicating what I wanted to say, walking, writing, talking, and just plain staying upright and functional.

Finally, half-joking, I said to him, "You know, I haven't always been this way. I used to be really smart."

His eyes widened. "Really? Wow. What did you say your disease was called again? I had no idea it could do that."

It can, and it does. Studies have shown that several of the conditions I have literally cause brain damage.

I haven't always been this way. It's not because I don't try or don't care. And, yes, it breaks my heart that my disabilities cause so much trouble for others; that it affects so much more than just myself.

No, I won't stop trying to find ways to manage it better; to be more functional. I don't use it as an excuse to stop working at doing better, and I won't give up. But I can't always predict when things will change; when the coping mechanisms that I've been using fairly successfully for the last several months or years will suddenly no longer be enough.

Some days are better than others. Especially if I rest up for several days ahead of time, I can often pull out several hours of relative sharpness and functionality. I can often function decently well, especially in a situation that encourages adrenaline production, and especially if I don't stop or slow down until it's over. But it's difficult to predict when it will all come crashing down, leaving nothing but shards of broken energy and clarity.

Ironically, it's the day-to-day things that cause the most trouble. Getting ready to leave for an appointment is one of the worst. I look at the clock, but have trouble making sense of it. Or I go downstairs and then get there and can't remember what I came for. Things always take far longer than I estimated, and the more stressed I get the longer they take. I drop or spill things trying to hurry. Most of all, I can't find things--I've tried to establish specific places to put things, but that doesn't always work.

I can't find my keys. I look at surfaces and into spaces, but my brain has difficulty registering what's on or in them. I look everywhere I can think of, looking in the place where my keys are three times before I find them. I already looked there twice; how could I have missed them? They were right where they should have been.

But I must have dropped my cell phone while I was looking. I go to look for that, and it's the same thing all over again. I finally call my phone, and find it dropped down behind the bed when I hear it ring.

Then I realize that I have no idea where I put my keys. I had found them; they were in my hand, I remember that, but I have no memory of what I did with them after that. So looking for the keys starts all over again.

I had my purse; I looked in it when I was looking for my keys, but it's not where I left it, so I must have moved it while I was looking for my keys.


I try so hard to get out the door on time. Before long I'm tired from rushing around and going up and down stairs, and it's harder and harder to keep moving. I desperately need to lie down, or at least sit down and rest. I want to just give up and stay home, and if it's not something I *must* do, that's often what happens. But some things can't be postponed. If it can be postponed, by the time I get ready to go I often just end up deciding to stay home, too tired from trying to get out the door to actually go out.

It's not just objects I lose. I lose time. I lose numbers and facts. I lose my train of thought. I lose names, both of people and of objects.

"That thing, you know, that big white thing that keeps the food cold," I say. Or I call a spoon a cucumber, or tell the kids to put the rack on the shoes instead of the other way round. They think it's hilarious.  It's not funny, really, but what can I do but laugh?

"Oh, I do that too," people say. "Everyone forgets things."

I have trouble with my own telephone number; relatives' names; times and dates, even of important events (my wedding, my kids' ages and birthdates, my own age and birthdate). Faces, places, long numbers or mathematics are next to impossible.

I write down an event on the calendar, but put it on the wrong date, or write down the wrong time. Or even if I wrote it down correctly I read a note that I have an appointment on a particular day and time, but that information may or may not sink into my brain. If it does, I may know I have an appointment Tuesday at 1:00, but calculating back from that to figure out when I need to leave and what has to happen between now and then might as well be quantum physics; especially figuring out how much time to take into account for things I drop or lose.

Sometimes I try to count something--a simple number, under 50, or even under 20, nothing complicated--and I can't manage it. I count and recount, but I forget where I was part way through, or I can't keep track of which number comes next, or I count them all but the number comes out different every time. Or I count them successfully, manage to get a number I'm sure is correct--but forget it before I can write it down. A simple task like counting how many places to set at the dinner table and then making sure I get the right number of items becomes terrifyingly frustrating and confusing.

Last week a package was returned to sender because I couldn't remember my address when I ordered it, and gave a conglomeration of our previous address and the address we've lived at now for well over a year.

It's not just an occasional occurrence. Every single time I have to say or write down my address, or my phone number, I'm frantically going over it in my mind, not sure I have it correct. I ask my kids or my husband to double check if they're available, but if they aren't there and I can't find a piece of mail to check, I just have to hope I got it right. I don't even try with my social security number--I know I won't get that right unless I look it up or ask my husband. Sometimes I even have trouble with my own name.

When I listen to phone messages on voicemail, I play each one over many times and am still not sure if I wrote the name and number down correctly. I have to set aside a decent chunk of time just to listen to the messages, and by the time I get through a few, I'm mentally exhausted. It's such an ordeal that sometimes I go weeks without listening to my messages. It helps a lot if the person leaving a message spells any unfamiliar names and repeats numbers twice.

I usually use my GPS even driving somewhere I've gone hundreds of times before, because if I don't I could end up in the next county, but occasionally I get cocky or the GPS won't work. Sometimes even with the GPS I still manage to turn the wrong direction or get on or off at the wrong exit. Lately I try to avoid driving as much as possible, especially if I'm unusually tired or having more brain fog than usual.

A few days ago I got lost picking the kids up from school. I was trying to drive straight from school to home, with no detours. The normally 15 to 20-minute trip took us more than an hour.

The next day I got turned around trying to get onto the freeway near my home, and ended up going north when I meant to go south, but it took a while before I realized I was going the wrong direction. That evening I got lost three times--significantly lost--driving home from my mother-in-law's neighborhood. I can get lost no matter how familiar the route. I drive up to an intersection I've been at hundreds of times before and it looks completely unfamilar, and I don't know if or which way I'm supposed to turn.

We got home, and I was so exhausted and in pain that I had to lie down. The other plans, things I had needed to get done that afternoon and over the next day or two would have to wait. I needed to conserve what little energy I had left for the most urgent things, like feeding the kids. Spoons are in limited supply.

It's been worse lately. Things I used to be able to count on my brain for, it will fizzle out on. I'll think I've planned for all the contingencies, that I have everything under control. Things will be running along smoothly and then, suddenly, I'm figuratively or literally lost; confused about what went wrong. Information that I had at my fingertips is suddenly inaccessible. Something that should be simple to understand makes no sense. A task that should be quick and easy to do demands colossal effort, and takes many times longer than it should.

I can handle the chronic pain, especially if it stays below a 7 or so. But it's the severe, bone-wrenching fatigue and the cognitive issues more than anything else that leave me feeling that both my body and my mind have betrayed me, and afraid of what the future might hold as things progress.

I've been cutting back on my activities and commitments, and even on social outings. Part of it is just that I'm focused on basic survival right now; and things like meals, sleep and the most urgent of the daily chores take priority. But part of it is that I'm afraid to let someone down; afraid to take on a commitment I won't be able to follow through on; afraid of the impact my failures have on others.

Most of the time I still do OK in writing; it helps a lot to be able to look back at what was already said in the conversation, or in whatever I'm writing. And I can take breaks and come back to it later without completely losing my train of thought. So I do much of my social interaction online, on Facebook, message boards, etc.

And, really, it's not always that bad. I am able to function adequately for most things. I don't need to be able to remember what exit to take in order to cook a fabulous dinner. Although I get lost a lot, I do fine with the actual process of driving, and I don't have trouble remembering things like the rules of the road. I even drove to several places today without getting lost once. :) I may not be able to remember my kids' teachers' names, but I can read the kids a bedtime story. If I can't figure out their homework, I can point them to someone who can. Usually I can carry on a conversation and participate in social gatherings just fine, at least for a period of time.

Most of the time, I function well enough that most people wouldn't notice anything amiss, or if they do they just think I'm unusually scattered and disorganized.

Thankfully, I do have people in my life who have the patience and understanding to love me and want to spend time with me anyway. Those are the people I need to surround myself with. I can't spend my limited functional time and energy going overboard trying to maintain relationships with the people who can't or won't understand that I don't struggle with these things on purpose just to make their lives difficult; or who think it's because I don't care or don't try.

Of all the elements of my health issues, it's the cognitive issues that scare me the worst. I find myself writing things down when my mind is relatively clear, hoping that somehow it will help me and/or others later. I can usually do better in writing than with other types of communication, because I can go back to read and re-read what was already said. I'm so thankful to be able to go back and read blog entries I wrote about my kids and about events and people I'd never remember otherwise.

A functional mind is a precious thing, and feeling that it's slipping away and not knowing if or when it will come back is far worse than any physical pain.

Please, not the P word!

I let the kids wear costumes to hand out candy to the neighbor kids tonight. They all looked so cute.

Ebee thinks she's found the ultimate logical reason for why she should eat all candy NOW: "But if I don't eat it, it will melt."

AJ's obsession of the month is poison. Probably stemming from a combination of a Fire Department Open House (which included a presentation and coloring book from poison control) and a PBS special on venomous snakes in the last month or so.

I keep reminding myself that at least this time it's not something about one of the other kids (like when she was hiding under chairs screaming and lying awake at night worrying about the way M&M drew pictures, or that one of the other kids was swinging higher than AJ on the swings, etc.).

The counselor says extremely helpful things like, "Well, just stop thinking about it," "Think about something else," and "You're giving her too much attention when she does it--no, wait, you're not paying her enough attention." "If you just punish her when she does this sort of thing, she'll stop." Etc.

She says things to AJ like, "Well you just need to figure out what worries are real and which are just silly" but she hasn't been able to give any suggestions or tools for how to do it.

We are looking for a counselor who is a better fit. Preferably one that shares or at least has respect for our faith, and doesn't respond to questions like "Why did God make bad things like germs?" with a deer-in-the-headlights look and a nebulous mumbling about Mother Nature.

NLASS, who is very good at handling circumstances with grace and humor, watched the girls for a few hours yesterday while I ran errands. She called me two or three times to tell me that AJ was driving her crazy worrying about poison, but she never let on to the kids--just figured out ways to distract them or make them laugh.

She made up silly stories about bungling burglers who spilled poison on themselves while trying to use it on someone else, and came up with pretty compelling distractions. NLASS even drank paint water and licked soap in an attempt to prove to AJ that the manufacturers had not actually lied about it being nontoxic in an attempt to sneak poison into unsuspecting homes.

AJ was asked to take a break from talking about poisonpoisonPOISON for the weekend, because Mommy and NLASS are being driven. crazy. after weeks of hearing about poison approximately 60 million times a day (ok, that might be a slight exaggeration). (And Mommy is very tired, after being kept up until almost midnight and woken at something like 6AM to field worries about poison yet again.)

So a few minutes ago AJ (who mentioned to me a bit earlier that she got her costume wet washing her face and hands) wrote the following note in her notebook and left it open on the table:

"It's Halloween, And my whole costume is wett do you think it mihgt be poisen?"

M&M found the note and wrote on it, "Anser: No. I would say not." and on the next page (which I managed to make disappear before AJ saw) she wrote, "You are So Silly!"

AJ thereupon had a meltdown that M&M wrote in her notebook.

M&M recopied AJ's note nicely on the next page of AJ's notebook, sans answer, crossed out her comment on the first copy and wrote, "Sorry. I diden't now it [the notebook] was yors," next to it.

AJ was mollified.

Sweet. I love it when they're able to do such good conflict resolution.

The kids are also all responding with very good humor to the new "rule" that anyone who says the P word has to immediately do two jumping jacks.

Now that's embarrassing

I managed to get myself stranded at a friend's house today. I know my pain and fatigue levels were really high today, but I figured that since they were only about 10-15 minutes' drive away, I'd be able to manage.

The kids had a great time playing with their friends, but I forgot that they also have two cats in the house. Adding the cat allergens on top of the fairly extreme flare-up I was already having was just too much for me.

By the time I realized how bad it was getting, I was past being able to drive. So I tried to stick it out until I felt better, but it just kept getting worse. I tried to hide it as long as I could, but eventually I dissolved into a puddle of tears. Don't you just hate it when pain and fatigue get to the level where you can't think straight and you feel like you're either going to throw up or pass out?

My friend was so sweet. She put me to rest in her bed, sent the kids outside, and said that she really could drive us home or call my husband if I needed her to.

Eventually I felt enough better to be able to drive home, promising my friend that I would call her when I got home (or pull over and call her or DH before then if I was having difficulty driving safely).

The trip home went fine, other than my getting annoyed at a trucker in a fancy semi who apparently thought the road was a hotrod racetrack. He kept riding on my tail, then tried to pass me where there wasn't really room. I cringed and tucked my tail, speeding faster than I felt comfortable with while trying to keep a safe distance between us. Finally I braked to a fast 35 MPH (on a 35MPH road) to fling my minivan around the corner onto our street. He honked at me as he gunned past up the hill. Argh.

Anyway, we made it home OK. For most of the afternoon I let the kids play in the back yard while I rested on the couch nearby. Thankfully we had enough leftovers for dinner, and Ebee took a short nap. DH took over when he got home and let me take it easy.

I'm really hoping the pain levels will settle down enough to let me sleep tonight. I've often been having trouble dozing off before 4 or 5 in the morning this week, because the worse the pain gets the harder it is to sleep--and the less sleep I get, the worse the pain gets. Lovely cycle, there.

As the week wears on, I'm really questioning whether the fun at the beach was really worth it. I'm glad to have done it, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. I'd been feeling a lot better the last couple of weeks, but I guess it's still pretty easy to upset the equilibrium. Grrr.

Sleep well, everyone. I'm heading to bed, and I'm sticking close to home for a while.

Communicating, not Manipulating

This is a follow-up post to Can Infants Lie?

This article discusses a study that supposedly showed that babies as young as 6 months have the capability to lie:

Dr Reddy said: "Fake crying is one of the earliest forms of deception to emerge, and infants use it to get attention even though nothing is wrong. You can tell, as they will then pause while they wait to hear if their mother is responding, before crying again.

"It demonstrates they're clearly able to distinguish that what they are doing will have an effect. This is essentially all adults do when they tell lies, except in adults it becomes more morally loaded."

To me, this says that the baby is beginning to develop an understanding of cause and effect, not that they're lying. The fact that they listen to see if you're coming in answer to their cry doesn't have anything to do with deceitfulness, IMHO.

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The fact that a baby may sometimes cry more when they have an audience doesn't necessarily mean they are faking it, either. This blog post by Carrie had a great take on this idea, I think. The whole post is very much worth the read, but I'll quote a sentence or two:

If a friend who is upset calls me and I answer the phone, she will likely tell me what’s on her mind. But what if she gets my machine? Will she pour out her heart and cry into the voicemail? Likely not. That means she’s “lying” if she cries on my shoulder in person, right?

Another article about Dr. Reddy says,

The researcher defines "fake" crying as being more calculated than the usual "I'm tired/hungry/wet/hurt/lonely" cries. . . .

"If crying is normally closely connected to some discomfort or distress, and this is its typical use, then disconnecting it from that typical use and using it more deliberately or instrumentally to get attention constitutes its fakeness."

That's what I was responding to with the comment that if your baby just wants Mommy, what do you expect them to do--send a telegram? Why decide that a cry is "fake" just because they don't have an easily-determinable "discomfort or distress"?

The article also mentioned that there was a different quality to the cries they judged as "fake". To me, that's not the baby "fake crying" . . . that's the baby using a different type of cry to communicate different things. The fact that the pitch and intensity of the baby's cries varies with different circumstances seems an argument against lying, not proof of dishonesty.

Babies live very much in the moment. They have no concept of time, and they know very little beyond the fact that they are uncomfortable. To them, it seems as though they've been hungry forever and will continue to be hungry forever. So they often cry with great urgency when they have a need.

But I don't think "selfishness" is the best way to describe this. Webster's dictionary defines selfishness this way:

"Caring supremely or unduly for one's self; regarding one's own comfort, advantage, etc., in disregard, or at the expense, of those of others."

The baby isn't taking someone else's food and eating it, or forcing the parent to feed it right now. It's just crying. It has no ability to deprive anyone else of anything--the parent could just as easily choose not to meet the baby's needs and let it cry. A baby has no way of knowing that it might be inconveniencing anyone.

It's not caring "unduly" for itself, because it has no ability to do otherwise. That level of concern for its own needs is necessary and appropriate for an infant. An infant who waited until it wouldn't be inconveniencing anyone before it cried might die of hunger. So I wouldn't connect the baby's crying with a motivation of selfishness.

Someone else made this comparison, which I thought was apt: What if you were in a terrible accident and you couldn't talk or move your body? Would it be selfish or manipulative of you to use the nurse's call button when you were hungry or needed to go to the bathroom, or the sun from the window was in your eyes, or you wanted the channel changed on the television?

As we discussed a bit in the comments of the last post, babies might be egocentric in the sense that they have no concept of time or of anyone else's needs, but they are not "selfish" in the sense that they are disregarding someone else's known needs in favor of their own or caring "unduly" for themselves. They are doing exactly what they are designed to do.

I've seen many people recommend that if a baby has been recently fed and changed, then the parent should not feel it necessary to pick them up when they cry. I definitely think there's a place for prioritizing other needs over that of the baby at times when the need does not seem urgent, but I think this should be done with caution and forethought, and I don't think it's a preferable method for teaching a baby anything. I can't picture leaving a baby crying alone for hours, as is done in the extreme cry-it-out methods.

Dr. Luther Emmett Holt, the first major promoter of the cry-it-out approach in the USA with his book, The Care and Feeding of Children, wrote,

"How is an infant to be managed that cries from temper, habit, or to be indulged?"

"It should simply be allowed to 'cry it out.' This often requires an hour, and, in some cases, two or three hours. A second struggle will seldom last more than ten or fifteen minutes, and a third will rarely be necessary."

On Becoming Babywise, which puts great emphasis on not allowing the baby to run the household with their selfish demands, says,

"When your baby awakens, give him a chance to resettle. You really do not need to rush right in right away. Any crying will be temporary, lasting from five to possibly forty-five minutes. Remember, this will be temporary!" ( pp 124-125 in 2001 edition, p. 123 in 1998 edition [the '98 edition is the one I have here]; emphasis mine) and, "Just remember, sometimes the best action is no action at all." (p. 151, 1998 edition)

One problem with this is that it necessarily requires an assumption on the part of the parent that they know what the child's needs are and that the baby doesn't need anything at a given moment. I think it's important to consider is that a baby's needs are not always obvious or easy to determine.

There were a number of times when one of my babies would wake up crying in the middle of the night and I would go pick them up, only to have them let out a huge burp and then settle back to sleep. Simply picking them up relieved their pain almost instantly. The "don't pick the baby up because then they won't learn to sleep on their own" school of thought would have let the baby continue to cry in pain for many minutes, or perhaps hours, alone in her crib.

I remember when AJ was still quite a tiny baby, and she began screaming and screaming, the intensity of her cries escalating as we tried to figure out what was wrong. It wasn't hunger or need of a diaper change, and picking her up and holding her didn't lessen the cries. It seemed that "there was nothing wrong."

Then I noticed a hair in her mouth and removed it rather absentmindedly, still trying to figure out the reason for her cries. Immediately, she stopped crying.

She was crying because of the hair in her mouth. She had no other way of telling us what was wrong or asking for help.

I don't believe that babies cry for no reason. Sometimes we can't figure out what the reason is, or sometimes we can't fix it. They might have an earache, or an itch they can't scratch, or just need emotional comfort and want to be held. Sometimes they may even just need to blow off steam by crying. But that doesn't mean there is no reason for their cries, or that they're "lying" or being "manipulative" or "selfish" by crying.

How can we as adults just decide that because we can't figure out and fix whatever is making the baby cry, it must not be important?

In my experience and opinion, when a baby cries a lot, nurses constantly, and is difficult to put down, it is likely to be the result of a physical issue such as reflux, tummy pain, inadequate food intake, an allergy or food intolerance, teething, ear infection, or some other type of health issue rather than the result of a "spoiled" baby.

Many complaints, including ear infections, sinus infections, and reflux, cause direct and specific discomfort when a baby is laid flat. A baby who cries when put down may actually be in pain. Being held can literally ease an infant's pain. The fact that a baby cries when put down and stops crying when picked up is not, as some writers would have us believe, instant proof that the baby is being manipulative.

I found that my children were actually more content and happier to be put down for longer periods of time when they were not in pain, had all their needs met consistently, and were as a rule promptly picked up when they cried. This fits with what other parents have shared, and a number of studies have shown. Being held and cuddled--not just when they "need" something--is an actual physical need. Babies cannot thrive without this nurturing.

In Preparation for Parenting, Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo discourage parents' spending too much time holding and interacting with their babies. They do encourage parents to interact with the babies while giving basic care, but otherwise the baby is expected to spend much of the day (while not sleeping) playing alone ("playpen time" is very important in the GKGW program):

"One thing is certain: Your baby doesn't need to be carried or entertained by you all day long" (page 130) . . . "In addition to feeding, changing, and bathing your baby, you might have at least one playtime a day when the baby has your full attention for 15 minutes or so." (page 132)

I'm certainly not saying that everyone should hold their baby all the time. There's a large range of variations between holding the baby constantly and limiting them to 15 minutes a day of interaction beyond basic care.

I do think that there are times when it may be necessary for a parent to put a baby down in a safe place and let them cry for a short time. A parent should never feel guilty about doing this if they are at the end of their patience and have been unable to soothe the baby (it's always better to put the baby down in a safe place for a few minutes than to punish or yell at it), or if they need to do something they cannot safely do while holding the baby.

When Baby E would scream for hours or days at a time, there were times when I had to put her down and let her cry while I helped another child with the potty, cooked dinner, or took a couple of minutes to calm my nerves in another room.

But I never saw it as teaching her not to be selfish. I saw it as balancing everyone's needs the best I could.

Quite possibly there are some babies and/or some times when babies do need to cry, and parents can be sensitive to that. I loved Moxie's theory about there being at least two different kinds of babies: those who release tension by crying, and those who increase tension by crying.

Some kids may just need to fuss a bit before falling asleep, and will do that even if they're being held. Some kids may be fine being put into the crib and allowed to blow off steam for a few minutes. Others will work themselves into a frenzy and end up traumatized if left to cry. There is no "one size fits all" method that works perfectly for every baby.

All in all, I think the bottom line comes down to figuring out the baby's needs and what works for the family--while, hopefully, treating the needs and desires of everyone in the family with value and respect.

One thing that really impacted my parenting was something my sister-in-law shared with me after her beautiful 3-month-old son died of SIDS.

SIL said that an older mother had encouraged her to relax and enjoy the time her baby was small, and just enjoy all the cuddling. Babies grew up quickly, she said, and the time for holding and cuddling them is short. Relish that time that they want to be held in your arms, and are small enough to carry around. Enjoy their babyhood before it's gone.

She never knew how precious that advice would be.

My sister-in-law shared with me that she was so thankful this more experienced mother had given this advice, and that SIL had followed it. He was a baby who liked to be held a lot, and SIL felt the freedom to hold her baby as much as she wanted to without worrying that she was going to "spoil" him.

In the three months that little William was on this earth, his mother lavished love and affection on him--holding him, playing with him, loving and cuddling him, often carrying him while she tended to her other children and tasks.

He responded by pouring out more exuberant love and connection than I think I'd ever seen from a baby that young. His entire body convulsed with joy when his mother walked into the room; his eyes lit up and his gaze followed her with delight. He was an exceptionally happy and interactive infant. I loved holding him because he would look straight into my eyes and smile and coo with such joy and enthusiasm.

When he died, SIL had so many wonderful memories. There were no regrets about how she'd chosen to spend those three months with her baby.

I think that was one of many things God used in my life to prepare me to mother Baby E, with her health issues and constant crying. Somehow, after that, I simply could not resent having a baby who needed to be held almost constantly.

Can infants lie?

There are a number of teachers and writers who say that infants can "lie" or be manipulative by crying when they aren't hungry, wet, or hurt. I remember reading somewhere that if a baby cried, and then stopped crying when you came into the room, they were being manipulative.

Personally, I was always touched and pleased when my baby stopped crying when she saw me coming (or heard me say I was coming) because, to me, that communicated that she loved and trusted me so much that she had complete confidence I would be able to take care of whatever her need was.

"Oh, Mommy is here! Everything will be all better now."

That, or she just wanted me.

I just can't imagine taking offense at the fact that my child finds comfort in my presence.

The thing is, babies can only communicate by crying. And they don't necessarily know why they are uncomfortable or how to fix it. They don't know if that pain in their tummy is hunger or gas or loneliness. They just know something's not right, and so they cry.

When someone thinks a baby is lying or manipulating because they are crying "just" because they want a parent nearby or want to be held, I wonder: It's a baby. It wants you. How do you expect it to communicate that, by sending you a telegram? If there's some unwritten rule that only "urgent needs" are allowed to be communicated by crying, then you'd better install a telegraph machine in the crib and teach the baby Morse Code so they can tell you if they're cold or bored or lonely, or the light from the window is glaring in their eyes, or whatever. But before you can do that, you have to teach them how to figure out why they're uncomfortable and what exactly will fix it.

Seriously, the idea that babies can lie presupposes that they know exactly why they're uncomfortable, have figured out how to fix it, guess that you won't think it is important enough to fix, know exactly what you WILL think is important enough to fix, know how to communicate differently for each of these things, and so calculate mentally the exact frequency and intensity of crying to try to make you think they are hungry, when they know that really they are lonely and just want to be held--but if they only tell you that they want to be held, you might not do it. Oh, and they also must understand that they can communicate something specific to you, and that a particular cry on their part will bring about a particular response on your part that would be different from your response to a different cry. And then figure out which cry to emit. And have the muscle tone, voice modulation and air control to make the sound come out exactly the way they planned.

So they think ahead and scheme to try to make you think they are hurt or hungry by crying at a particular megahertz and frequency to communicate something they know is not true to get you to do something specific that they have in mind.

The idea that babies can actually lie presupposes an understanding of truth and fiction, cause and effect, object permanence, communication, predicting another's actions, calculating exactly what stimulus will be likely to give rise to a particular response, and a number of other quite advanced reasoning and interpersonal skills.

If the baby actually had the capability to do that, they probably could send you a telegram.

I do think that once they're a little older, they are experimenting with and beginning to learn about things like cause and effect and object permanence. ("I don't see Mommy. If I cry, will she appear from somewhere, or is she gone forever??")

But at the age when they still don't even understand that their own hands are attached to their arms, I think the biggest thing they learn from our response to their crying is that they're not alone in the world. When they need something, they will be cared for and when they call, someone will answer.* And that's foundational to all sorts of other truths and skills in life. To me, that concept is even foundational to my faith.



*Obviously there are times when a parent can't always answer immediately.

Prank Calls?

10:15PM--Male who sputtered and choked (while I said, "Hello? Hello? Who is this? What did you say?") until he finally gained composure enough to identify himself as Santa Claus. I couldn't think what to say, so responded with only silence until he hung up.

11:15PM--Female who said, "I can see you." DH's only response was to hang up.

Why do kids think this sort of thing is even funny??? Especially that late in the evening. I thought about lecturing them, but figured that probably a non-response was the best response. That and tracing the phone call through the phone company's reporting system, which I did.

We quite frequently get calls that involve silence and then hanging up, but this was unusual. The fact that they called us twice in one night seems to make it a bit less likely that it was somebody just calling random numbers.

Ugh

I just wrote a big long post explaining the significance of leaven, chametz and kitnios for Passover. I'd been working on it whenever I got a few minutes, all day long. I even took time to proofread it.

Then I hit post and got an error message:

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.

The following Errors were found:securityToken : Your request could not be processed. Please try again.

The post is completely lost. I kept the window open and keep hitting refresh every now and then to see if it will magically appear, but no such luck. With the old Blogger, hitting the back button would often recover the post, but not with the new version. Even the "recover post" button, if it recovers anything at all (half the time it doesn't), only brings back the first few paragraphs at most.

This is one of the things that drives me crazy about the new Blogger. Especially since I keep forgetting to copy my work before I post, just in case. This has happened to me numerous times lately, so you'd think I'd remember to save it before I hit post. But no. I could not be so sensible.

Sigh.

Deposits, but no return

We have apparently lost several more foods, including yogurt. That brings Baby E's total number of foods she can't tolerate to somewhere in the range of at least a dozen.

Today I made various phone calls between doing school with the girls, preparing meals and caring for a still-fussy Baby E.

I called allergist #1 to tell him about Baby E's most recent series of reactions and get his opinion. Of course he said he didn't think they were allergies.

So I guess it's official: Baby E has no food allergies.

Her consistent, reproducible, quick-onset GI symptoms, rashes, swelling, itching and general misery from specific foods are adverse reactions, not allergies. The tests say so.

Those first 8 positive skin-prick tests must have been false positives. Funny how she had "false positives" only to those foods which actually give her the not-allergic reactions.

I've called our GI specialist at the Children's Hospital at least four times over the past month or more, to ask three questions, and still haven't received a single return phone call.

The questions:

#############

1) Where did she send the orders for the stool test she ordered for Baby E, if indeed she sent them anywhere? Because none of the three labs we've used in the past has them.

2) Is it all right to switch Baby E to ranitidine (Zantac) instead of omeprazole (Prilosec) for her reflux, since she started getting rashes, itching, severe discomfort and diarrhea every time we gave her a dose of the omeprazole?

3) Could we please get the product code for the mask that was used for Baby E's endoscopy back in December, so the mask company can find out what was in/on it that might have caused Baby E's reaction to it.

The stool test isn't going to get done in time to get the results back before our appointment next week, we went ahead and switched Baby E's medication ourselves without the doctor's approval, and I'm not sure if we'll ever get the information about the mask, since we've been trying to get that since December with no success.

At least we already had a previous prescription from another doctor for the ranitidine--otherwise we would have had to choose whether to go for weeks with a reflux med that was causing increasingly severe reactions or no reflux med at all, which would also make Baby E miserable. Ugh.

I do really like the GI specialist, but we've consistently had a terrible time getting her to return phone calls. I've finally learned that we'll get an answer more quickly by making an appointment than by leaving a phone message. That could get real expensive real fast.