My firstborn baby was extremely fussy and colicky. She cried around the clock for the first 5 months of her life. I have faint memories of trying to race into a restaurant with her, order my food, then quickly (and with clammy hands) ask for the food “to-go” because I couldn’t calm the baby down.
Several weeks into my new gig as “mom,” I ventured into Gap to find myself a pair of (non-maternity) jeans that would fit my new mom-bod. Both baby Taylor and I spent the visit to the store crying in the fitting room because I couldn’t get her to nurse or take a pacifier or stop screaming for even 2 seconds. I could hear people in the store whispering about the baby. I was embarrassed and sweaty and exhausted and just wondered if life would ever feel “normal” again.
Another time, I pulled through the Starbucks drive-thru with my screaming infant in the backseat. The barista kept saying, “Ma’am, I can’t hear your order over the crying baby!” I wanted to shout back, “I CAN’T HEAR MY OWN F&$?!ING THOUGHTS OVER THE CRYING BABY, LADY!”
At 4 months of age, I brought Taylor on an airplane with me for the first time. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but let’s just say I spent the flight drenched in sweat and praying that my seat-mates brought their noise canceling headphones with them.
Does everyone’s mom life involve lots of sweating? Or is that just me?
Taylor and I spent more time inside the walls of our own home than I care to admit. I felt incapable of calming my own baby – and I was incredibly embarrassed about bringing her out into public to be given the side eye the minute she made a peep.
Then baby #2 came around – and she was a far less fussy baby. And yet, I still found myself constantly worrying about her disturbing other patrons in a store, restaurant, or godforsaken airplane. She was much easier to calm down, but I could still constantly feel the fiery burn of onlookers’ stares the minute my baby started making noise.
My lovely mother-in-law came for a visit sometime during my pregnancy with baby#3 to help me care for baby #1 and baby #2. I’ll never forget the advice she gave to me. She said, “Don’t ever feel like you need to apologize for your children being children.”
The advice was so simple and yet, so profound. Why are we made to feel like our kids are an inconvenience to the rest of the world? Why do we feel like we need to say “I’m sorry” to our neighbors when our kids show their emotions? If they never acted on their emotions, they’d never learn to express themselves. We’d never be able to give them the tools they need to learn self-control.
Elsa knew what she was talking about when she coined the phrase, “Let it go!” It’s deeper than just not caring and letting it roll off your back.
Now, when I’m out in the world with my third lovely child and she starts to lose it, I just let it go. I acknowledge her feelings and try to help in whatever way I can, but this mom has got stuff to do. And that stuff includes shopping, and eating, and yes…flying on airplanes where other people exist. I simply refuse to allow myself to feel embarrassed that my baby is the loudest noise in a store.
I’ve learned to just let it go. I’m not sure why it took me until my third child arrived to figure it out. Babies are people too!
