The Fear of the Cry

Being around a crying baby is stressful. As a parent, being around your own crying baby is, at least to me, extra stressful. The noise is designed to be attention-grabbing—simultaneously grating and pity-inducing. It’s just annoying enough for us to be motivated to act, yet sad enough that we’re inspired to be gentle and loving as we take care of whatever the crying baby needs. Crying is a well-designed behavior for babies to be able to express themselves to their caregivers, so that we know when to feed them, change them, play with them, hold them, and help them go to sleep.

Crying may have been designed primarily to allow babies to express their needs, but sometimes, especially as a baby grows older, crying can be about expressing other things as well. Older babies and pre-verbal toddlers often cry to express emotions such as frustration, anger, and of course sadness. Even young babies cry for no obvious reason at times. Sometimes babies cry even when their physical and emotional needs have all been met, and no attempts to comfort them will help. Sometimes toddlers just seem to feel cranky, and there is nothing that can be done to change their mood. In times like these, the crying can feel like an unanswerable problem that you are being demanded to solve.

Cody is an excellent example of this. He cries and whines a lot, and often there is nothing I can do to make it stop. Sometimes I have absolutely no idea why he’s even crying (and I suspect neither does he), and all I can do is sit with him in my lap while he works through it.

I’ve realized lately that I have a subconscious “fear” of Cody crying. Or, more accurately, I feel that I always have to “fix it” when he cries. Being his mom is extra-stressful because he’s not an easy, content baby. I am constantly on alert as to what might upset him next. I try to keep him happy but I often fail, simply because of his personality. The resulting stress, frustration, and exhaustion is what I imagine it would feel like to work at a job where your boss is constantly criticizing you, day in and day out.

Of course, Cody is not my boss, even though it can feel like it sometimes. As the parent, I am the boss, and I’m confident in that role. Yet part of being a parent means putting your child’s needs above your own. Attachment parenting in particular values nurturing, understanding, and compassionate treatment of one’s children. As an attachment parent, I strive to build a relationship with my son of mutual respect, trust, and love. Because Cory and I don’t simply do whatever we want with no regard to what our child wants, it does demand more from us as parents. I see Cody’s feelings as valid, and I won’t deny him comfort or closeness, which are emotional needs. I don’t expect him to act like an adult, or to be convenient for me—his only job right now is to learn and grow. These are important principles to me, as a parent.

The problem is when I assume that because of these values, it is my job to fix it any time Cody cries. Yes, his feelings are valid and yes, it is my job to meet his needs, including emotional ones. But that doesn’t mean that my goal should be to keep him from crying. In fact, allowing him to express himself, sometimes through crying, is one way that I can support his emotional needs.

When Cody becomes frustrated with something, I can try to help him figure out the problem or suggest a different activity. When he’s angry or sad because of a limit that we enforce, I can offer empathy and perhaps a distraction. When he’s whining, I can ignore it so that he learns to express himself in a more effective, respectful, and less annoying way. And when he’s crying simply because he feels sad (and he’s not hungry, thirsty, tired, bored, in need of a diaper change, or having pain or discomfort) then I can hold him and give him comfort until he feels better. It’s okay for him to cry. It’s my job to be there for him in those times, not to fix it, but just to love him.

One last thing I want to emphasize is that crying is not a misbehavior. It makes me so sad and frustrated when I see parents or caregivers chastising a child for crying. (It’s even worse when children are scolded or told to “be good and stop crying” when they are crying as a result of separation anxiety. Separation from parents can be very frightening and upsetting for young children. They aren’t being bad for feeling sad!) Often children have no other way to express their feelings because they haven’t developed the ability to use their words effectively yet. And even when they have, crying is still a normal way of expressing emotion. Children are people, too, and they have every right to feel whatever they feel, whether that’s sadness or anger or frustration or confusion or anything else. It’s not our place to judge whether their feelings are justified—that helps nobody. Instead, the focus should be on accepting and responding appropriately to feelings at any age. Emotion is not something to fear, be ashamed of, fix, or avoid. It’s a part of who we are, as humans, and we can all do better in learning to express and respond to feelings.

I’m getting better every day at not fearing the cry. But I don’t want to get to the point where I habitually ignore it either. Instead, I try to respond by taking action when appropriate, and realize that sometimes there’s nothing to do but just be there to listen, and that’s okay too.

Faith in the Face of Disappointment

Over the past several months, Cory and I have been praying and believing for a particular thing to happen in our lives. I can’t say what it is just yet, but we’ve been really struggling with the process of receiving this thing from God.

For the past few years, I’ve been learning a lot about the power of faith. It was something I never really heard about growing up in church, but as an adult I learned that when we want God to work in our lives, we have a role to play in that, which is to have strong faith and to believe that he will do what we are asking. There are a lot of verses in the Bible that make some pretty strong statements about faith. Mark 11:24 says “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” That’s a bold statement, straight from the mouth of Jesus! And yet, I’m going to have to ask God to clarify some things when I get to heaven, because this verse has proved blatantly false in my life on more than one occasion.

Nevertheless, I still believe that the Bible is a source of truth, and I certainly believe that Jesus’ words are infallible. So there must be something I’m missing. While this may sound like a flimsy disclaimer, the truth is that I am human with an imperfect understanding of God and his ways. I have to choose to continue to trust God and his Word, despite the times when I feel that things aren’t adding up.

So as Cory and I have been asking and having faith that God will give us what we are asking for, we’ve done our very best to continue trusting him and waiting patiently for him to answer our prayers. A few weeks ago, my pastor taught us that when the Bible says “wait” on God, it means to “wrap yourself around” him and his promises. And so, we’ve wrapped our hearts around his faithfulness, and fervently believed that he would come through for us.

There have been about four times now in which we’ve come close to receiving our answer. Each time we’ve believed it would happen, and each time we’ve been crushed when it didn’t. It hurts each time, and we go through a period of losing hope before we gather our strength back up and re-wrap our hearts around the next opportunity. Today was the fourth time that we’ve been let down, and it hurts even more than the last three times, because this time we’ve decided that it’s time to stop trying for a little while. The disappointment is exhausting, and we both need a break from it.

Reflecting on this whole process and the role of faith in our relationship with God, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

First, I’ve learned that faith doesn’t guarantee that we will receive what we ask for from God. We can’t force God to do anything, obviously. Yet without faith, we are far more likely to not receive anything we ask for. Faith is what enables us to receive blessings from God—but again, it doesn’t force God to bless us.

Second, I still believe that God wants to bless us, and all of his children, in every area of our lives. I don’t believe that God ever chooses to leave his children in poverty or sickness or turmoil (or other, less dramatic forms of lack) because he thinks that’s what is best for them. No way. I believe that we live in a broken world, but that God is always working for our good. So despite our struggles, we can know that God wants to rescue us and bring us into something better.

Third, I can see more clearly than ever that often, God’s blessings face obstacles while they’re on their way to us. Sometimes, God’s angels have to battle spiritual opposition from the enemy. Sometimes, there are puzzle pieces that need to be arranged just so before we can receive what we are asking for. Sometimes, there are hearts involved that need to be worked on first. But no matter what is going on behind the scenes, we can know that God is working on it. Because he does answer prayers, and he does care about every area of our lives. It is our job to trust, and let him work. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” It’s not what we can see that matters, it’s our faith in God and our confidence in who he is.

While Cory and I are still feeling very upset and wishing that our hopes would be fulfilled sooner, we are standing strong on who our God is. Nobody ever said that you can’t be crying while you’re standing, though.

It will happen eventually, and when it does, I can’t wait to share all of the awesome details with all of you.

Pig Party

Last week, we were out running errands and we went to Petco to pick up some dog food. We thought it might be fun to show Cody some of the small animals in the cages while we were there. We were looking at the guinea pigs when it happened—I was seized by the sudden urge to get a new pet! This desire was increased by the fact that I find guinea pigs adorable, and the store had two cages full of baby females, which are relatively uncommon as they usually only sell males and they are often adults. I was immediately drawn to a small white and gray one, who I thought was especially cute. I started my appeals to Cory right away, but was met with some pretty firm resistance. I eventually agreed that we should at least take a day to think about it before we bring more pets into our home.

That night, I tried to convince Cory that it was a great idea. He has a tendency at times to be a bit, one might say, “Grinch-y” about things. This was a fine example of such Grinch-ness. He gave me a ton of reasons why it was a bad idea and why we would regret it. I combatted his reasons with my own research into proper guinea pig care and a plan as to how we would fit them into our lives (plural, because guinea pigs are happiest with at least one friend). Still, no matter how convincing I thought I was, Cory was still reluctant. By the end of the night, I was resolved to forgetting about it. Yet I couldn’t quite erase from my mind that little white and gray piggy, who I had already hypothetically named Charlotte.

The next day, the first thing in the morning, Cory asked me where we would put the cage if we got guinea pigs. I broke into a huge smile and shared my ideas for piggy housing with him. And that was it, we decided to go get our furry friends that night!

At the store, we chose Charlotte and another, even smaller guinea who is brown and white, and we named her Penelope. Since the day after we brought them home, they have been happy little critters. I love spending time to make sure they have a really nice home, watching them explore and eat, and taking them out a couple of times each day for petting and snuggles and play outside of the cage. It has actually become a really enjoyable hobby for me to care for them! As soon as Cody goes down for naps and bedtime, it’s guinea pig time, and it gives me something fun and relaxing to do. Even when Cody’s awake, we both like to spend time sitting near their cage and watching them. He’s learning how to pet them gently, too, and respect their space.

They’re super cute, and very sweet little girls. Charlotte, or just Char for short, is more shy but less jumpy, which makes her somewhat easier to pick up since she doesn’t always bother running away. She is quieter, and more subtle with her noises. She is the bigger pig at this point, and has declared herself the alpha. Penelope is more outgoing and will always venture out first when we’re hanging out near the cage. She is fast, though, and runs away when we try to pick her up. Yet as soon as she’s in our lap being petted, she purrs with contentment. She squeaks louder and more often than Charlotte. I predict that once she outgrows Charlotte, or reaches the same size, she will overthrow her as alpha because she seems to have a more naturally dominant personality. We call her Penny for short.

Both pigs are very happy with their new home, which we can tell from the way that they “popcorn,” or run around and hop excitedly, usually on a daily basis. I’d never seen guinea pigs popcorning before we brought these two home! Considering they have a big cage lined with fleece bedding, unlimited hay, several hiding boxes, fresh vegetables served daily, and each other for company, I’m not too surprised that they’re so happy all the time. These are some spoiled cavies! (Cavy is the proper term for a guinea pig).

To sum up, they are super cute and I am enjoying them a lot. Yay for piggies!

Disclaimer: Yes, I realize it is BAD and SHAMEFUL to buy a pet from a pet store when I could have adopted instead. If I hadn’t been so enamored with Charlotte, I probably would have gone out and adopted two piggies from a shelter or a rescue. But I also really wanted babies, because in my small amount of guinea pig experience I have noticed that babies tend to be friendlier, and I wanted to get them used to being held by us from the beginning. Even so, I would strongly recommend anybody who is interested in getting any pet to think ADOPTION FIRST! If we ever add a third guinea pig to our home, which I hope to someday, we will most definitely adopt. It is the more compassionate and ethical decision, no doubt. Despite my decision to buy from a pet store, I am committed to giving these guineas an excellent forever home. At least I can feel good about that. =]