Cry, Cry, Cry!

I saw an article the other day about a young mom who crawls into the crib of her baby to take a nap with it. Apparently, the husband took the picture and the question with the picture was something to the effect of why this guy’s wife is sleeping in the crib with the baby. I had to read it, it interested me.

I know you are asking the same question, so why was this lady in the crib with her baby? Well, I tell you why. This mother had heard a story about an orphanage in Uganda, in which none of the babies cried. You could walk into the room, with 40-50 babies and not a peep was made. The reason for this, was, that there were so many babies, there weren’t enough staff members to go to every baby when they cried. So the babies learned to stop crying. No one came if they did. Now this new mom, decided she would go to her child every time the baby cried. She would never let her baby’s cries go unanswered.

It doesn’t quite explain the crawling into the crib part. You can go to your baby without crawling into the crib with them. I know this for a fact. I’ve had two babies myself. The question I want to ask this new mom is: “Are you planning on having more than one child?”

You see, I got some great advice when I had my first. This other mom, who I think had five children told me not to do things for my first child, that I won’t be able to do with the second or third. She said to pretend you have other children, then you won’t develop habits that the first child will need to break.

Call me an old jaded crab, but I think crawling into a baby’s crib is ridiculous. Your baby will cry. And then they will cry again, and again, and again. They will cry because their diaper is wet. They will cry because they are hungry. They may cry because they’re coming down with something. Babies cry. And get this, you won’t be able to answer every cry right away. Especially if you have more than one child.

Picture this. You are standing in your kitchen, stirring a pot. Your youngest is taking a nap and your toddler is in the living room, or so you think. As you stir your pot, you realize, the toddler has become extremely quiet. That is not a good sign. Not ever. As you mull this thought in your head, the youngest has awoken from their nap and is now crying to let you know they are done sleeping and would like to get up now. You look up at the ceiling in which you can hear the baby crying for you. You are still stirring the contents of your pot. And that nagging feeling that the toddler is up to no good, is twisting your guts. Your baby is still hollering to let you know, he would really like to get up from his nap now. His diaper his full, and he is quite done with the nap. Sheer panic strikes at your gut and you turn off the pot and realize there are more important things to tend to. You must find the quiet toddler, “something wicked this way comes.” The baby has turned up the volume, very upset you haven’t come yet. But you have to go find the toddler. Quiet toddlers are never good. Where is the toddler? You make a half hearted attempt to call to the baby that you will be there in a minute, “I’ve got to find your brother!” you say, as if the toddler is going to say, “Oh, okay, didn’t know.”

The toddler is no where to be seen. This isn’t good. Where is that child? This is when you wish you had a slick camera system throughout the whole house, in which you can spy on these little heathens. Is he behind the couch? Nope. You look to the front door, is it open? No. You pause a minute to see if you can hear anything. Yeah, the baby is still crying. Where is the toddler? You turn to look towards the bathroom door. It is closed. Dun, dun, dun! You walk quickly to the door, you fling it open. There he is! He’s discovered your tube of mascara and has been painting with it for the past twenty minutes. He has black streaks up and down his legs, on the floor, and mascara graffiti on the walls. He looks at you stunned, that you found him so easily. You let out a big sigh and take away the offending tube. The baby has really not understood all the efforts you are making being a mother and is really yelling loud now. You tell the toddler to stay right there while you get the baby.

Well, you get the idea. And yes, the mascara incident really did happen in my house. But it was my daughter rather than a son.

I heard a really great point in church today. Don’t make your child/children idols. Make God first in your life and everything will work out. And if God is first in our lives, I don’t think we’ll be crawling into our baby’s cribs.