Long Night

Yesterday Cohen was a complete sweetheart. I got out the camera while I was feeding him lunch because he was being so hilarious. He would shake his head no when I would offer him a bite of food, then give a little chuckle and open his mouth for it. He would stick his tongue out at me and laugh, or sing, and point to everything there was to point at in the kitchen with an expression of, "look, mom!". It is times like that when you think you can never be upset or mad at the little angel ever.

Fast-forward to bedtime for mommy.

It was 2:00 am, and he woke up crying. He does this once in a while. I give him a binky and he goes back to sleep. Rarely, I'll have to stroke his back and hum a little tune for a few minutes while he settles down and falls back to sleep. Last night he was just fussy and AWAKE. He wanted to hit my face, pull my hair, cry really loud, drink some of his bottle then cry because he didn't want it, then cry because I took it away, read a book, throw a book, cry because the book is on the ground... and the night went on like this until 3:30 when I threw open the door to our bedroom and told Joe, "you need to take a turn with him before I rip his head off". I actually said those words. Out loud. About my sweet Cohen.

Joe took him in the front room and I heard Cohen stop crying. I laid down and closed my eyes and tried to calm my nerves. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew Joe was hovering over me with Cohen at 4am - still wide awake - and said, "he's not tired". Which meant, I need to go back to sleep because I have to be to work at 7am, so you'll just have to get up.

So, I got up, took Cohen and sat him down in front of his toys in the living room, which he wasn't interested in and started to cry, and I just stared at him. And he stared at me, with big ol' tears in his eyes. And instead of sympathy, I felt psycho-mommy inside me building back up. I walked away to the kitchen, and made him another bottle. He drank it faster than usual, just staring at me, stroking my shirt and my arm. I felt like a monster. He is a 9 month old baby who doesn't feel well and needs some attention, and I am a 27-year-old adult who wanted to punch a hole in the wall.

I gently laid his tired, limp body in his crib, and he turned over and went to sleep. I said a little prayer to have more patience with my sweet baby at night (which, in hindsight I should have done at 2:00 instead of 5:00), and I finally went back to sleep.

This morning I woke up to the pictures I had taken the day before at lunch and started to cry at how innocent and sweet my baby is. I wish I had a picture of me last night at around 3:30 to remember how I never want to feel again (Disney would probably pay money for it as the look of their next evil-step-mother villian); to remind myself how different my mind thinks at 3:30 in the morning, and that patience is the virtue I need to work on most.