Screaming inside

On a mama-focused web site I today quickly read a story about a mother who is calm on the outside but inside is shouting 'shut up!! shut up!!' at her kids. It made me laugh.

But tonight I was screaming too. Our little one has gone to sleep three of the past four nights without nursing. She's almost one, and for me (and my waning milk supply) it's an epic event. But tonight, as though knowing Mama is having a down day and sensing that it's the last of a long series of nights 'a deux', everything went to hell.

Let's back up a little. Following a hearty dinner she was in the bath and reached up to be taken out, hair slathered in shampoo. I convinced her to stay in to get rinsed off. Clearly that was a mistake. I should have put her to bed with a shampooey head when she wanted to go.

Because of course when we were done she didn't want to get out.

And when we went to her room to read stories, she sat poker-straight on my knee, impatiently looking at the Spanish moon story and pointing up to the shelf. When I realised it was Goodnight Gorilla that she wanted to read (complete with zoo animal sounds from mama), she bounced up and down and started to giggle. I knew I was in trouble but I had no idea...

We read GNG three times. Then once again in the dark for good measure. And Goodnight Moon. Twice. And then in the dark. She turned the pages to the ones with the best sounds, which is cute but NOT at bed time. And then she squirmed and complained as I tried to put her to bed. Half an hour of back rubbing and singing later, she was standing at the edge of her crib, bouncing and tossing things down onto her exhausted mama lying prone on the floor.

Turns out she couldn't care less if Papa buys her a mocking bird or that she's my sunshine, my only sunshine. She wanted to pull my hair and giggle and kick. But not sleep.

So we got up. We rocked. She screamed. We tried soother in and soother out. She screamed. We went to get medicine. She tasted it, and screamed. We came downstairs to refill the water bottle which she was draining at a crazy rate.

Suddenly she was happy. Giggling and chattering away. I was furious.

I put her down for a second, and she started moving like a baby on speed.

I've never seen her zoom around so fast and open so many cupboards in the kitchen. And the big rubbish bin which she loves to push open. I got so frustrated with her that, whilst simultaneously speaking to her father on the phone and saying 'fuck' a lot, I plonked her down with her toys and told her sternly that I'd had enough and she couldn't run rampaging through the kitchen.

She made it back there almost faster than I did, using the speed-crawling method. So, like many mothers before me, I gave in and turned on the Teletubbies (thanks to Youtube) and sat her in her high chair so she would be still and I could have my dinner. She nearly fell asleep in her chair, but perked right up when I lifted her out and tried to take her to her room.

Nothing worked. Not rocking. Not darkness. Not stories. Not water. Not crib. Not soother.

But boob? Oh yeah, she took that all right.

As she snuggled happily against my very hot and sweaty body, I started screaming inside. We'd been battling for two hours, and she'd won. And I was ragingly furious. I'm still pissed off, and she's been asleep for 90 minutes.

Thank God she actually went down after nursing, because if she had refused to I think the inside voice/outside voice filter would have broken. And this screaming mama wouldn't have been good for anyone.