Remembering the nightmare.

Did you know that being a mother causes your memory to leak out your ears?  It's true.  I was just re-reading older posts I had written about Angus.  He used to have colic??  Really?  I've already forgotten!  He used to hate being in the car, really?  God, it's only been two months since Aaron and I strapped Angus in his car seat and gritted our teeth because we were facing 1000 kilometres of endless screaming.  Now when we put him in the car, he gazes happily out the window, or occupies himself by trying to get his foot in his mouth.  If he starts to get squirelly, we crank up the music and it distracts him so quickly he forgets to fuss.

I've already forgotten how I used to feel like I was in prison at home in our shoebox apartment with my cell mate, the homicidal baby.  In the heat of summer, instead of being out and about like everyone else, I was inside with the curtains drawn, staring exasperated at my screaming baby, every baby-calming device deployed.  Sometimes I would just sit there and watch him scream, knowing I had tried everything, and all I was able to do was cry into my coffee cup, immobilized.
 I was afraid to leave the house, because I thought I would die of embarrassment if Angus pitched a fit in public.  He always did of course- and I did always wanted to die.  I think once, Aaron and I attempted to go out for lunch with our disgruntled baby, and he, of course, threw a huge tantrum.  We finished our lunches in a hurry and threw Angus in the stroller and tried to walk him around to get him to shut up.  It was a bright summer day, so we had the stroller visor completely pulled down, so you couldn't see him.  But everyone heard him.  We walked four blocks downtown, engulfed in tourists milling around, paving the way with our screaming carriage.  I think at one point, I stopped and stuck my head in the stroller and yelled, "WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM!!"  People stopped and stared in surprise.
I finally got to the point where I didn't even care what people thought anymore.  I used to worry that people would think that the reason my baby screamed so much was because we deliberately starved him.  I thought everyone else's babies were all serene, easy-going babies.  That's how it appears on the surface anyway.  Nobody wants to admit their child is a nightmare.
Anyway, it seems so long ago now.  He's such a delightful baby now, I can't even remember those awful three months unless I really try.

I don't know how we survived it.  I actually don't even think we were conscious most of the time.  We had to shut our emotions down.  We had to forget who we were for three months.  Something switches on when you're a parent, and even if you're the most incompetent, ignorant asshole who had a baby, you have no choice but to just DEAL.  You don't have a say in the matter, you just do it automatically.  You don't even think about it.  And somehow the baby survives. 

My heart goes out to parents of colicky babies.  Hearing "It only lasts for three months" can be more despairing than comforting.  All I can say is, have faith that your baby will wake up one day out of the blue, smiling sweetly at you, the sun will shine out of his ass, and you will totally forget that you once googled "How to sell a baby on the black market."

I would like to expound more on the subject, but Angus is waking up from his extra-long nap.  I can hear him squawking.  It will escalate into pissed-off crying if I don't pick him up right away, and he'll flap his arms and slap the matress angrily, but I usually delay and watch him for  few minutes because now I think it's cute when he gets mad.