tonight i babysat for some friends.\u00a0 The baby cried.\u00a0 I tried to feed her (since her dad had told me she’d probably be hungry soon).\u00a0 no dice.\u00a0 i checked to see if she was wet.\u00a0 she shrieked louder.\u00a0 i tried several different holds–they’d each work for a few bounces, then she’d get mad again.\u00a0 i finally swaddled her, swayed, shushed and patted and she eventually fell asleep.\u00a0 but probably 15 minutes later she woke up again.\u00a0 We shared a nice few moments where she smiled at me and then it either slowly dawned on her that she was hungry or that i was unfamiliar and she started to cry again.\u00a0 i tried to feed her, but as soon as she’d get a mouthful, she’d start screaming, just mad as heck.\u00a0 So this dance of trying to figure out what to do went on for awhile (i won’t bore you with the rest of the play-by-play).\u00a0 I was pleased to notice that her distress caused me less panic now than it used to when I babysat in high school (yay!) but I was dismayed to think that maybe the reason that she was upset was perhaps simply because i was NOT-THE-MAMA.\u00a0 Now, normally, since I am obviously NOT the mama, this wouldn’t really bother me.\u00a0 But tonight, it got me thinking.\u00a0 They say that infants recognize their mother by smell the moment they are born.\u00a0 What if my kid knows I’m NOT-THE-MAMA?\u00a0 What if, even if that’s not the case, what if I WORRY that that’s why my kid is inconsolable some evening?\u00a0 Because of their “primal loss”?\u00a0 Will I ever feel settled into my role as THE MAMA?\u00a0 Is this how dads (even biological ones) feel all the time because they don’t smell like THE MAMA either?\u00a0 Or is it not as big of an issue for them?<\/p>\n
The good news is that by the time her dad came home, she’d been asleep (albeit restlessly) for awhile and stayed asleep at least until I left.<\/p>\n
And now my wrists ache.\u00a0 Was I doing something wrong?\u00a0 Must start building up wrist muscles….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
tonight i babysat for some friends.\u00a0 The baby cried.\u00a0 I tried to feed her (since her dad had told me she’d probably be hungry soon).\u00a0 no dice.\u00a0 i checked to see if she was wet.\u00a0 she shrieked louder.\u00a0 i tried several different holds–they’d each work for a few bounces, then she’d get mad again.\u00a0 i […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}