We were both relieved when Molly's colic finally ended. Soon after, although things weren't nearly as difficult as they had once been, we realized that Molly is a 7 month old drama queen. Anyone who knows me probably thinks I entirely deserve the Molly theatrics, although my mother has confirmed that in spite of also suffering from colic I was a fairly well behaved infant and child.
Miss Molly has a temper. Yesterday when Chris got home from work I explained how Molly and I were fighting because while I tried to change her diaper she kicked at me, hit at me, screamed and threw diapers all around the room. Chris then asked me if she stomped around and slammed some doors - a direct dig at me. I gave him a really dirty look.* I feel a little guilty about painting her as the bad guy, but her brother is so easy going that I genuinely forget that he's around sometimes and I have never forgotten about Queen Molly's presence. Whenever I say that she's being bad, my mother corrects me and tells me that she's just high maintenance. I am aware that she is teething and is coping with a lot of gum pain.** We have learned her patterns, and are aware that she is a morning person, who requires a lot more sleep than her brother and gets crankier and crankier by the minute until her 830pm-9pmish bed time. She has turned a corner and is a lot more pleasant to be around most of the time, but I think we let this fool us into submission.
Generally she requires three naps a day, varying in length and I can count on one hand how many times she's gone done with a whimper rather than a scream. And when I say scream, I mean a lioness growl that sounds more like an angry wild cat than that of a 16.5 lb baby girl. Usually this results in 5-10 minutes of angry snarling, followed by her falling asleep. The past two weeks she's gone down with much more of a fight, even though I didn't think that was possible.
First she screams her wild cat screams*** and then the waterworks start - I didn't know anyone was capable of so many tears. We've had to change her sheets because they get sopping wet from her crying, with her tears soaking into her clothes and blankets. If you go and check on her, she'll smile at you, as if saying, "I'm not tired. You should come play with me. I wasn't even crying." Don't pick her up, it's a trap. Next comes the intense kicking of the sides of the crib like some sort of deranged ninja until she gets her legs wedged between the bars and really freaks out. Then when you go to check on her again she'll do this bizarre maniacal mix between a laugh and a cry, where no one, not even Molly herself knows what she's trying to accomplish.
I wonder if part of this new sleep issue has to do with the fact that the soft noises of the Sleep Sheep we normally use to lull the babies to sleep (Molly's preferred sound whales noises, Jack's babbling brook) is running out of batteries. The problem with children's stuff, and I am aware that this is a safety issue - it still doesn't make it any less of a pain, is that everything is safety attached, which means that you need a screw driver to change the batteries on Sleep Sheep. When Sleep Sheep runs low on batteries it doesn't stop working the noises change: whale sounds, now resembles demons who have come to swallow your soul, while babbling brook sounds more like a toilet clogging and leaking all over your floor. Maybe I should take care of that tonight, but I probably won't have time.
*I am trying really hard not to swear as much in front of the children, which has resulted in a code where I glare a lot and when Chris is being a douche I call him Topher. It still has some bugs.
**To feel better she'll often intensely suck on a phallic shaped stuffed snail on her Exersaucer (AKA The Console of Doom). It horrifies her father and he won't let me photograph her doing this.
***Our sitter Liz calls this her siren scream, think something Medusaesque that could turn sailors to stone. (Yes I know I'm combining legends here).
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