All of Us Are Crying

How can you NOT love this face?

Lately, things have been pretty busy over here. Unfortunately, Evie is a big crier (long live the family tradition). When she's not sleeping or nursing, she's pretty much crying. She has some quiet moments (that we love), but they die off quickly. If we have family over, we all pass the baby around trying to soothe her. Sometimes things works, sometimes they don't. Here are a few things that she likes--the sound of bathroom fans, bouncing on the exercise ball, being swaddled. These things work in combination, but not always the same combination...and sometimes they don't work at all. Currently, her all-time favorite thing is being rocked with an up and down movement (basically, you hold her while doing squats and lunges). This is exhausting. We all work up a sweat doing this move around the house just so she'll calm down. Of course, the only person who can continuously do this is B, since he is in better shape than anyone else in the family. But even B has been saying that his legs are getting sore because he doesn't get any recovery time. To make himself feel better though, he always says, "My legs are going to be ripped!" Anything to make us feel better, right? But look at how calm Evie is when B does his squats--


When I'm by myself though, I can't constantly hold Evie, even if she's crying. I just don't have the time. I have to eat...the kids have to eat...we have to get ready to leave...Eli needs to go down for a nap...the list goes on and on. So nowadays, Evie gets to lay on the couch and cry her heart out for at least 30 minutes at a time. Her crying used to bother me, but I'm slowly learning to tune it out--for survival reasons. The only up-side to letting her cry is that she usually takes an AWESOME nap after the next feeding. These days, she takes a 2 hour nap while Eli takes his nap...which works out beautifully. You'd think I could get a lot done during this time, but honestly, the time is devoted to housework on most days. This gives me enough time to unload the dishwasher, do the morning dishes, clean up the morning mess, and get a head start on dinner. And just like that--BAM!--2 hours are over and Evie's crying again.

Evie is also not a fan of the car. For some reason, we can never have babies who just fall asleep in the car. I've heard rumors about the existence of babies who love being lulled by the car, but they don't exist in our family. So Evie usually screams the entire car ride to and from wherever we need to go. I used to get worked up about it...I'd be sweating bullets while I drove the car. It's painful to listen to your baby cry in the car and not be able to do anything about it. But now I'm getting used to it...slowly, but surely. Elina has had practice getting used to a baby's crazy cry in the car, but this is all new to Eli. Sometimes he gets upset and says, "Get out! Get out!" as he's trying to get out of his car seat. Poor boy.

I took Evie to the pediatrician and she thinks that the baby might have reflux. She prescribed Zantac and we tried it for over a week but to no avail. So now Evie's on Prevacid and we're crossing our fingers that it'll work. I heard from other moms who were in the same situation that if it works, the difference is night and day. We barely gave Evie her first dose of it last night, so now we're just waiting.

Needless to say, we spend our days and nights passing the baby around trying to calm her down. It's a rough start, but it'll pass...one day...hopefully soon. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is temporary. Here is the "temporary" cry (if you dare listen to it)--