The Crying Game...

This just proves that yes, my cherubic little bundle-o-love has his moments. We call him the "Mayor of CrankyTown", "Cranky Pants", "Sir Cranks a Lot" and then there's always, "Sweet Jesus, what the hell is your freaking problem?!" (okay, that's not so much a nickname as a verbal precursor to my own mental breakdown, which generally immediately follows).

Apparently an incompetent cervix wasn't enough. Fifteen weeks of bedrest wasn't enough. An emergency c-section wasn't enough. A week in the NICU wasn't enough. Struggles with breastfeeding, nope. Not enough. The universe decided that Husband and I really needed to add "colicky baby" to our list of trials and tribulations.

Now, I don't know it he's really colicky. Colic is, by definition, an enigma. No one knows where it comes from, what causes it or who will get it. I do know that about 2 weeks ago, he started crying. ALL. THE. TIME. That is only a slight exaggeration. There are exceptions for sleeping (which happens a lot less than it used to) and those rare moments when we have managed to distract him with our goofiness or our back-breaking side to side swishing.

It is disheartening to have a baby who starts crying the second he wakes up (and sometimes while he's still asleep) and continues to cry almost to the moment he falls back to sleep. If you weren't already feeling inadequate as a mother and a human being in general by the "normal" experiences of dealing with a newborn, try not being able to comfort that newborn when he is screaming his face red and punching at you with aimless fists. That, my friends, is good times.

We give him something called "Gripe Water"---sounds like something pumped out of a swamp, but it is actually a mixture of ginger and fennel seeds that seems to calm him for a little while (about a millisecond in colicky baby land). It's damn expensive at Whole Foods, but it makes him feel better. A drop of it on his tongue and he gets this "ooooh, yum. I can stop crying for this..." look. I love that look. I wait all day for that look. But alas, I know it is fleeting and that as soon as the Gripe Water wears off, the griping will start again.

There is also a LOT of spit up in our lives these days. Painful, scream-inducing spit up. Hello, reflux, anyone?! Earlier in his culinary life, I gave up the various foods prone to give breastfeeding babies gas--had to make sure the milkshakes were Ethan-friendly before I served 'em up. No difference. Ah, the mysteries of the infant digestive system.

On Thursday we go for Ethan's 2-month check up. We will be grilling the cute young doctor about colic and reflux and demanding that he earn his damn pay by doing something to make Ethan's little belly feel better. Mommy is getting close to replacing her daily intake of water with gin and tonics and I don't think a "G&T milkshake" is really on Ethan's "acceptable foods" menu.