Betrayed By Mama

Little Ruthie felt more than a little bit betrayed tonight. Daddy has had a really hard time the last few times he babysat because she won't drink from a bottle. She will cry and fuss and scream for four hours until I can come home for my lunch break before she will take a bottle. Luckily, this morning it only took an hour before she decided to eat. She never used to do this, but she has been getting worse about it for the last few weeks. I decided that I would feed her one bottle each evening, to put her to sleep, for the next little while so that she gets more used to the bottle. And since I'm home, I can just pump and keep my milk going.

But tonight was torture. Torture to the extreme power. I might not be able to do this. She'll be eating solid foods sometime soon and won't need to drink her bottle, right? She screamed for forty-five minutes straight. But the worst part was the tears running down her little face, being blinked out of her beautiful little lashes. And the even worse part was her little body shaking to breathe because she was so sad. And the even WORSE part was the way her big eyes looked up at me and just couldn't figure out why HER MAMA wouldn't just feed her like a good, wonderful, normal mama would. Her mama was betraying her. Her mama was definitely not taking good care of her and not loving her. I wanted to cry right along with her. It was the most miserable feeling. Usually when she cries I don't feel this way, because I know I have done every possible thing to make her happy and well-cared for. But I just felt like I was neglecting my own poor, little baby. Worst mother ever award. Then I think about her poor babysitters for the next while, and I know I've got to get her more accustomed to this.



This is not a picture from tonight, although I did take one. That would require taking out the card that gets us wireless, uploading pictures---which usually don't upload on this old computer---and then resetting the internet to start again. I wasn't up to it.

 In the end, she didn't even take the bottle, she fell asleep in my arms looking like a perfect little angel, and I put her to bed. If she wakes up, should I try the bottle again? I'll probably call it a night and try again tomorrow night, lets hope the babysitter survives in the morning! And ALL of this AFTER I got her to laugh OUT LOUD 3 TIMES in a row! (all time record, since she laughed out loud for the first time on Saturday) and I spent twenty minutes looking in her mouth with a flash light and deciding that indeed, her bottom right tooth is coming in (#25 if its an adult tooth, but for the life of me I can't remember what the letter would be for a baby tooth). I have the sweetest baby!