Dear E,
You are an amazing child. I know I say things like “K was such a perfect baby, but E is extremely high maintence” all the time. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean I love you any less. In fact, I love you more for your fiery personality. At 9 months old, you have more fire, more personality in one little pissed off quirk of your eyebrow than K had when he was 3 years old. Your brother is calm greens and blues. You are bright red and vivid orange. All those colors are beautiful. All those colors are so different, there really is no comparing them.
There are, however, a few things I think you should know about babies. I don’t think you quite understand how this whole “infancy” thing works, so let me give you a few pointers.
1) When babies are sick, they like to cuddle with mama. They do NOT scream to be set on the floor, then scream when they’re not in mama’s lap. Normal sick babies get drowsy and like nothing more than to lay in Mama’s lap all day. You should try it. It can’t possibly be worse than laying on the floor and screaming.
2) You need a good night’s sleep. For the past 9 months of your life, you have slept through the night 3 times. You get up an average of 4 times a night. Now that you are sick, sleep is non existent. Waking mommy up that much is NOT COOL. Mommy needs her sleep. Mommy has been unable to cry for a year now, but with your gentle touch and loving screams of misery, Mommy spent most of the night bawling her eyes out because she has no idea how to help you. Mommy is going to lose her mind. Things just can’t continue like this. Never in Mommy’s life has she felt so miserable, alone, and powerless as you make her feel. That’s really saying something, since puberty was pretty hard on her.
3) Did I mention that you need a good night’s sleep? You will never get better if you don’t sleep. Try it sometime- it feels really, really good.
4) When Mommy tries to get you to sleep with her on the couch, you should take advantage of that. What you should NOT do is toss and turn until Mommy has to put you down, then scream bloody murder when Mommy finally DOES put you down.
5) Babies your age love to eat semi solid foods like cheerios and diced banana. They do NOT like to gag on them.
5) I can’t think of anything else to put down here that doesn’t sound…well. Yeah.
In conclusion, I would just like to say that staying up until 2 in the morning last night was very uncool. You and Mommy had to move to the livingroom so that your Daddy and Brother could get sleep, and now Mommy it bitter and depressed and exhausted. Please try to sleep better tonight. If Mommy decides one day to take out the trash, and wanders away never to be seen again, don’t feel too bad. It was probably bound to happen someday anyways.
Love,
Mommy
Continue reading To My Loving Daughter
