This is okay. I'm not the world's worst mother.

I don't have a fussy baby. I also don't have a fussy eight year old son. If the baby is fussy, it's usually because she is hungry, bored, or sleepy; all of these things are easily remedied. So, when she was in her super-fantastic-magical-saucer, which she loves so, and started fussing, the first thing I did was try to feed her.

Nope. She wasn't hungry.

The next thing I tried to do was entertain her. I made a fish face. I used funny voices. I bounced her on my knee while I sang "Thumbelina".

Nope. That didn't work.

Next, I tried to rock her to sleep. I do this thing where I hold her on my lap wrapped in a snuggly blanket while I simultaneously rock her back and forth and pat her on the back. This almost always works.

It didn't work.

I cycled through all of these things twice before realizing that she smelled horrible. Even worse, just as soon as I realized this, my usually mild-mannered son decided to whine at me that he wanted a turn to use the TV in the middle of my Hercules-a-thon! "Mom! Come on! It's my turn! Besides you've seeeeeeen this one before! When do I get a turn? I want to play Zeldaaaaa!"

Snap, snap, snap went my patience. I usually keep a high amount of this patience stuff around, just in case. But this time, it snapped. Then, I snapped. I snapped at my son. I snapped at the cat. I snapped at the baby. Then, I went upstairs and changed the shitty diaper into a fresh one and came back downstairs to run the gamut of food, entertainment, and nap again.

Again, none of these things worked. Confused and frustrated at how unusually fussy my almost-never-fussy baby had become, and how unusually whiney my almost-never-whiney son had become, I threw my head back and yelled "PLEASE!" I set the baby down out of fear of dropping her and walked into the kitchen screaming my little head off. Each step, my voice got louder and louder until I worried that the neighbors might hear me screaming and call the police. Then I picked my head back up, after having screamed it off, and put it back on, only to hear my almost-never-rude son say "Mom! That really hurt my ears!"

Ohmyfuckinggod. Seriously, kid? That hurt your ears? Oh, so sorry. I'll try not to ever let it happen again...

...is the sarcastic thing I WANTED to say. Instead, I just leaned against the kitchen wall and cried.

My son snuck in and hugged me. Then, he ran back into the living room and made funny faces at the baby, trying to get her to laugh. It didn't work, but he tried.

Now, it's the present. My son has stopped whining at me. The baby is still crying and being all, opposite. She's the opposite of what I'm used to. I just put her on the couch and let her cry, hoping she'll fall asleep.

I am NOT a cry-it-out fan. I don't do that. But what else am I supposed to do? It's obvious that she's tired. She won't eat, won't let me put her down, won't let me hold her, and doesn't want to be entertained. She is rubbing her baggy eyes and acting very much like she'd like to sleep, but she's not sleeping.

So I just put her down and typed this blog, hoping that typing out my situation will make it seem less frustrating and terrible.

It worked. I mean, there's people starving in China, or wherever. So, it's okay. I'm not the world's worst mother. It's okay that I snapped at my son. It's okay that I screamed at the top of my lungs so loudly that I hurt people's ears. It's okay that my baby is a crazy manic right now, because she's not usually like that. I mean, there are starving people in China that would love to be where I am right now. You know, if not China, wherever.

(I want to note that as I was typing this, I had placed the weird alien baby that had replaced my baby onto my chest and let her wriggle and whine there. She is now sound asleep.

I am, of course, trapped under the weird alien baby that has replaced my baby. But at least it's quiet.)