It was the best of days, it was the worst of days

Had an instance Wednesday where I was having a great day with Maggie up until about two PM and it just went south hard leaving me feeling like a terrible parent after hours of undirected screaming and attempts to calm the savage beast.

I’ve had a kind of baby whisperer thing going on for a while – while not an instant thing, I usually can guess what’s wrong and at least calm the kiddo from juggernaut down to grumpy ferret levels, but not Wednesday.

That day I learned baby cries suck a little of your soul each minute, and by the time ITMama got back from work I feel as though most of my remaining soul had been devoured by the ferocious baby monster.

It was a really conflicting time watching her cry like a stuck pig but nothing I could do, including swaddling, feeding, burping, bouncing, leaving her alone, favorite toys, distraction, baby brain off chair, walking around the yard, plunking her in front of a television, showing her a cat, pacifier, burps, dark room, reading, etc did anything.

At what seemed like three and a half days of torture, but was actually probably around four hours, she tapered off, having spent all her energy flailing, crying, and being foul tempered. Whatever the cause of this soul-crushing bull running through my mental China shop was, it was forgotten.

My skills as a baby whisperer were back the next two days, this one random oddity haunts me still a bit though and has convinced me that I probably need to hunt down some of the relatives on my mom’s side of the family to see if this sort of shenanigans runs in the family or if I can fully blame ITMama’s temperament on Baby Monster’s day.

As a full blown practitioner of the jackass parenting arts, this came as my first real test of asshole vs baby asshole, and I’m still uncertain who won in this particular fight.