Do I do this? Do I NOT do this? What does she want? Is she hungry? Is she tired? What does she mean? What the hell is she trying to tell me?
And though this has gotten a tad bit better as Katie has learned to express her needs with words, there is still some doubt as to what I do is actually what she wants.
Take for instance last night. Oh boy. It was rough one.
We had a wake up at 12:15am. There was a lot of crying and tears. No fever that I could feel. A slight sniffly nose, but that could've been from the crying. After 5 or 10 minutes of hysterics, I got her to calm down enough to make a request for cheese, a tissue for her boogies and some water. All in all this process took about 45 minutes.
She laid back down. But, alas, it was not over. She would wake up and cry and then whine, "Mommmmy car" or "Daaaaaddddy block" or even "No. No. No. Nooooo." And then she would get quiet again and seem to go back to sleep. This lasted a while.
I left the room in hopes that she would put herself to sleep. Since she was making so much noise, I watched an episode of Roseanne downstairs. Oh, the wonder that is Nick at Nite. Man, Roseanne was a good show in its early years.
Anyways, at about 2am she started crying "Mommmmmy commmmeeee baaaaaaack." Over and over and over.
I sat there. This was the most heartbreaking thing I had ever heard from her. Sure, she's cried before. She's yelled out "MOMMY!" in the middle of the night. This was different. It was such a pitiable sound. It made me want to cry.
Was she just trying to get me to come back to feed her cheese again? Was she trying to manipulate me? If she was and I went in there, I was in for another hour long cheese and boogie blowing session. Or, was she scared from a nightmare or anxious about being alone? Hmmm. Maybe I should go in there and see what she wants.
This is what I mean. I sat there for 15 minutes thinking over all the possible reasons she could want me. I had no idea what to do. STILL. After just about 21 freaking months. I STILL don't know what to do.
Finally, I went with my gut. I couldn't take listening to her cry for me anymore. I went into the room. She was sitting there in her crib clutching her blankets. She looked up at me and said with relief, "Come back."
I told her that it was night time and that everyone was asleep, even Mommy. That's what people do at night time. I then reminded her of one of her books called Owl Babies. In the book, the Owl Mother disappears while the babies are asleep. The babies spend the whole book wondering whether she is going to come back. Of course, at the end she does. When I told her that HER Mommy would always come back, just like the Owl Mother, she said "Happy" (she was talking about the baby owls hopping up and down when they saw their Mommy).
She laid back down and in less than 5 minutes was so deep asleep that the binky had fallen out of her mouth.
Damn. Books are so awesome.
And so, I guess I chose right this time. It was a relief.
Tonight might be more of the same. I'm ready to be confused again. To stand outside her door thinking and thinking and thinking about what I should and shouldn't do.
Who knows, this time she might want me to get her pasta and meatballs. You can't count it out.
I am certain of one thing: I'm not ready to go THAT far.
