After a long exhausting day yesterday, Auntie Autumn and I were playing with Daven in the floor with balloons. He hasn’t been around any balloons for a few months now so he wasn’t sure what to do with them at first. He first tried to bite one, but we quickly stopped him from doing that knowing what the final outcome of screaming would be. And then finally, he tried to spin the balloons. After allowing Daven to explore the balloons Auntie Autumn started playing with him.

Here he is scantily clad in his wife-beater t-shirt playing. I thought the picture was too cute not to pass along.

The evening otherwise was pretty quiet. Logan was working late last night, so Daven and I went to Auntie Micah and Cousin Luke’s house. As usual, we (Micah and I, not Daven and Luke) had plenty of girl talk and giggles.

Once I got home and put Daven fast asleep in his crib, I picked things up a bit then crashed myself. Then about 11:30 pm he woke up just screaming in pain. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate these nights. Not only is it exhausting, but terribly frustrating for me to not know what the problem is.

We have dealt with the pains of colic for the first year of Daven’s life. What an arduous year! Now that the colic is MUCH better, nights like last night bring back so many raw memories of that first year. I revert back to colic relief mode in an instant. Consisting of running through the cycle of what may or may not work. It usually goes like this…

1.) Holding him close swaddling him while humming a soft gentle tune
2.) “...” + bouncing him up and down or rocking
3.) “.............” + static TV
4.) And finally swinging him in his car seat or a blanket

This is obviously the last resort because it is so hard now that Daven is getting bigger. Nineteen pounds doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you start swinging dead weight back and forth for long periods of time…it gets to be grueling. But 9 out of 10 times this works!

I just hate that feeling of not knowing what is wrong with my child. I feel that every other mom knows instantly what is wrong with their crying baby and can fix the problem within a minute or two at most. Granted, most of the time I know the difference between a hungry cry, a sleepy cry, a “hold me mom” cry, but I am baffled with colic cries.

I got Daven settled down when I finally got to the swinging part of the cycle and he fell back into sweet sleep. Was it a bad dream, a tummy ach, a stuffy nose, or a scratchy throat…I may never know. Maybe soon enough, he will be able to tell me what the problem is, or at the least…point to what hurts.

LOVE LOVE LOVE