The same day that the baby sitter warned me about stressful moms, she caused me to become one. I had dropped Diego off to her in the morning, and by 1pm, she called me with him crying in the background. She was concerned because he was crying wanting to be picked up and his unconsoled crying was triggering a flare up in his chest causing his difficult breathing to start up again. She was nervous about the sound of his breathing, which I had already become accustomed to. His crying could only be consoled by carrying him, but the sitter let me know that the other kids were trying to sleep and she had a lot of dishes to wash and cleaning to do.
When she said this, I was not very sympathetic in my mind. Her primary job is child care, not house care. I understand that keeping the daycare tidy is important, but when priorities arise such as a baby that needs to be consoled so that his lungs won't flare up, it trumps house cleaning in my mind. I had already told her that the doctor said his breathing was fine other than the sound of the wheezing, which was now only visible during crying fits. I had also told her that the doctor said the virus was no longer at a contagious stage and he was allowed to return to daycare.
She told me that the other kids were putting their fingers in their ears to stop from hearing the crying. In my mind I thought, then why don't you pick him up? Then she said that she wouldn't be able to take care of him like this.
Seriously? You want to make me feel that bad about my still-recuperating baby? I took care of him the entire previous week while his wheezing was at its height. There was absolutely no way that this flare up could possibly be as bad as it was the prior week. I had also made sure to warn her that his medication made him more hyper and outspoken than usual. I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut. I'm not sure if she meant that she could not take care of him if he continued to cry, or if he continued to wheeze. I got the feeling that it was the crying that was mostly bothering her and that she no longer wants to care for my baby.
After some discussion, we decided I would bring her his exersaucer because that's the only thing that seems to calm him down for longer bouts of time. The exersaucer keeps him at a mostly standing, somewhat sitting position and there are lots of activities to keep him occupied around it. I think I may have mentioned before that Diego is all about standing and wants NOTHING to do with crawling. He often gets frustrated while sitting and laying down, and standing is what makes him happy in these cases. Though I was skeptical before, I now believe he is on the fast track to walking, not crawling. My mother has said many times that I did not crawl and went straight to running. Knowing the source of this information, I had my suspicions and doubts :)
But now, I'm rethinking the information to possibly be true, as evidenced by the picture below. That is me, in the middle of a sprint. How old do I look in this picture? Do I look like I might be 7 months or so? I honestly don't know. But my husband says I'm definitely over a year old. It's probably true, I'm not the best a gauging childrens' ages.
So for now, the exersaucer has done the trick. To quote the sitter, "That thing is like MAGIC!" The stress has been contained for now, but Javier and I will begin looking for alternate daycare options. It's always good to have a Plan B.
