A while back I wrote about the frenzied game of trial and error that would result when trying to figure out what is wrong with a kid. When I wrote that, the girls were much younger, and there was a certain list of ailments/needs/gripes that the kid could be suffering from. Things like teething, diaper rash, and lime-sized poop passage.
Now that they're a bit older, I have to add one to the list: just plain crankiness. They have personalities now, so that means they don't have to have any damn reason at all to be cranky. Who needs needs when you can just have a tantrum for the sheer joy of it?
It's important, though, not to just jump to this new cause while disregarding all the old ones. This is what we did tonight. I think. Still not sure, actually. Lily has been rather tempestuous from the moment I picked her up. Bath time was an unqualified disaster, she was essentially face down thrashing with all her might. Abby could only, like us, watch with squinty eyes as she sent water flying in everyone's faces.
Sometime after bath, when she just wouldn't stop crying at every little thing, we started to wonder if we weren't wrong. "She must be really tired, " I told Jen. Fatigue; there's a solid reason, so it seemed pretty good.
They both went down right at 7 with no complaints, so we'd all but considered ourselves geniuses. But she just woke up 30 minutes ago, wailing to beat the band. Kinda scary wailing, the sort of cry that makes the parental spidey-sense tingle. A pain cry.
Jen went up to give her juice under the presumption that she just might be constipated, which she has a grisly history of. According to Jen, she practically inhaled the juice.
The jury's still out. She's made a couple more ruckuses, but nothing enormous. Might be a long night.
Day two hundred and forty eight.
That's a fun chin to tickle.
No comments:
Post a Comment