There’s no doubt about it. Being a mom is a 24/7 job. Even if you do get a break in there where Grandma watches her or Aunt Karen watches her, you are still wondering in the back of your mind…is she screaming? Is she eating ok? Did she poop a huge nasty poop and now they will never babysit her again?

And then you remember, oh wait. They cleaned MY nasty poops when I was little. I am sure they don’t mind.

Last week, I made the trek up to Carmel to have lunch with my cousin on her fall break. Going anywhere with Heidi requires a bit of planning, be it Target across the street or Carmel, which is about 40 minutes away. What I have to do is basically have the car packed and ready to go so that when I am done nursing her, we can leave immediately. This helps me maximize the time between her feedings, since she typically doesn’t let me stretch it much past every two and a half hours. And really, that time is even less because she’ll fuss if she’s tired or if she’s STARTING to get hungry. So that pretty much leaves oh…an hour. 🙂

Anyways, so I’m on 465, that speedy, treacherous loop around Indianapolis. I hit 86th street as I’m heading north, and Heidi starts to cry. It quickly escalates to a scream. I’ve heard this scream countless times, and it never fails to give me hot flashes. I kid you not. My blood pressure shoots through the roof when she cries out and I sweat. I mean that child’s scream is truly blood-curdling, like someone is ripping her arms off. I tried to calm myself down. I was determined not to pull over and make this trip longer than it had to be. I was a tad nervous something was wrong, but quickly dismissed the idea. Heidi was fed, she was dry, she was buckled in and safe. There was no harm in letting her scream, besides giving mommy pitters before she even gets to lunch.  I keep saying to myself, out loud, she is fine, we don’t have that much farther, there’s no reason to stop, deep  breaths.

About ten minutes later, she abruptly stopped screaming. It didn’t wind down, it didn’t gradually get quieter. It just stopped. I got nervous. Was she ok? Was she strangled by her hoodie? Did she somehow die from SIDS while SHE WAS AWAKE AND SCREAMING?! I called out her name (as if she could even answer me) several times. Nothing.

At the next stoplight, I reached over and yanked back the visor on her carseat. I heard her startle, and then explode into her screaming fits again. I had woken her up.

Does this sound anything like my last post? Um yes. Do I learn from my mistakes? Um no.

*sigh* So while I had to listen to her scream the rest of the way, I honestly felt better that I knew she was ok. It’s insane what goes through my mind as a parent. I mean, I am constantly thinking, omg worse case scenario! I was a mess when she had to get her tongue tie fixed, and when I called my mom crying that afternoon to tell her how awful it was, she just said, “You are not going to survive parenthood.”

And I replied, “No. I don’t believe I will.”