Adjustments

I hope no one takes this as complaining, because it's really anything but that. I have a baby who is incredibly easy-going, sweet, and agreeable. There are just some aspects to caring for even the easiest newborn that are challenging to say the least. I had always heard there's no harm in letting a baby cry for a few minutes if you know they're not hurt or in need of anything. Those "experts" obviously don't have any children. As soon as I hear so much as a whimper from Lilah, I'm jerked out of a dead sleep (usually to find she was just dreaming anyway). I read this week that the cry of an infant is genetically designed to agitate her parents, mostly the mother. I guess that's how even the stupidest parents have managed to keep children alive. We as mothers are engineered to do anything to quiet the cries of our babies.
In school, they told us something that made much more sense to me. Our OB instructor said comforting an infant immediately is not only all right, it's a good thing. By ignoring the cry and letting the baby "self-soothe", you're basically telling it to meet its own needs, and that can damage the trust it has in its parents. There are obvious exceptions, like colic, where you just can't do anything to meet the needs of the baby. But to let it sit there and cry can even hurt the parent-child trust relationship later on in life.
I just hate that, since she's so new to the world, Lilah can go from happy/content/sleeping to completely frantic in seconds. I know in my head that she's just not used to feeling like she needs anything, since she just came from an environment where all her needs were met without her knowing it. But to look at her poor little face when she's crying, especially when she's just made herself overly tired and is too upset to fall asleep, breaks my heart when I'm trying everything I know to make her happy again. I know it's a temporary phase, but it makes me feel like a horrible parent when I can't do anything for her.
On a lighter note, Dano and I had a semi-serious discussion about how we need to take a break from the Hazards of Love album before we wear it out and ruin it forever. Every day since the talk, he has either caught me sneaking it with the excuse "Lilah likes it", or I've gotten in the car and seen him surreptitiously taking it out of the cd player and inserting something else.
It doesn't help that the end track makes me cry *every* time I hear it. I'm well aware it's a silly story set to gorgeous music with well-written lyrics. William, the prince of a magical forest called the Taiga (ruled by a jealous queen who rescued him from death as an infant and gave him the power to shape-shift into a white fawn) falls in love with a river-daughter named Margaret. Their encounter ends in pregnancy. The queen is enraged and gets a murderer called the Rake to kidnap Margaret and take her across the river, thinking her son would be too scared to cross it. William frantically promises Annan Water, the river, his life if he's allowed to cross once. He rescues his love and attempts to cross back when he's reminded of his promise. As Annan Water comes to claim his life, William and Margaret exchange marriage vows and die together in the water. It sounds like a story you'd read to a little girl before bedtime. It is, really. Colin Meloy, the lead singer and writer for the Decemberists, has a passion for melodrama, tragic love, and drowning. For me, it's just impossible to listen to the hour-long musical tale and not be moved by the ending - " 'With this long last rush of air, we speak our vows and starry whispers.' When the waves came crashing down, he closed his eyes and softly kissed her." Dramatic, yes. Beautiful, absolutely.
The best part of it all - watching Lilah stare at me questioningly every time it makes me cry.