Failure

The trouble with being a full-time mom is that you really start to believe in what you're doing.

You see the importance of your job. You're glad you don't have to hand over your kid to some daycare worker on days when they're sick or scared or feeling a little extra shy, to be looked after by four or five adults in a room full of other children. You count it as an enormous blessing that you have the opportunity to be the one to bandage boo-boos and listen to half-hysterical explanations of how Bunny was accidentally left in the car. You're lucky, really, to be one of the few who get to read the same wordy story about the Little Blue Engine over and over and over and over again to your kids every single day, because it means you're the one who's there for your kids, every single day.

So you try to do it all-out, giving every day every ounce of your energy. You put all of your brainpower and emotional control into being patient and careful and loving. You work on being protective without being a hellicopter, teaching without taking away their own unique style. You try, and you try, and you try.

And sometimes, unlike that Little Blue Engine, you fail.

And because you believe in what you are doing, because you think it's the most important thing you'll ever do, because you love the funny little people you are doing it for so fiercely that you would do anything, ANYTHING, to succeed for them--

Well...failing sucks.

Birdie has been inconsolable lately, and I don't know why. She is normally such an intensely joyful little person that I honestly don't get it.

She isn't wet. She isn't hungry. She isn't teething. She isn't sick.

I try feeding her. She doesn't want it. I try feeding her something else. She only gets more frustrated.

She screams when I lay her down for naps. Maybe she's ready to give one of them up. I cut out the morning nap.

Definitely NOT ready to give up the morning nap.

I change diaper brands, thinking maybe the old kind was scratching her. She cries. I try bringing around her Mimi (a blanket, for those not fluent in Birdian) with her everywhere we go. She calms down for a minute, then cries again.

Little Miss went through this, too. Am I crazy? Am I that horrible at understanding what my kids need? Am I just such a lousy mom that my children end up shrieking in fury at my incompetency?

I know no one is perfect. I know that lots of kids probably go through this. I know that. Of course I do. But it's like changing diapers or cleaning up vomit or wiping noses--it's different when it's your kid. When you've devoted your life to them, any failure, big or small, feels crushing.

The worst part is that I feel so ridiculously helpless. Here's my beautiful baby girl, screaming like someone is stabbing her, and I can't do a darn thing.

I tried for an hour tonight to get Birdie to eat something before bedtime. She'd barely touched any food all day, and I didn't want her to be hungry. That's a reasonable thing for a mom to want, right? She wasn't interested in eating, though. She was only interested in sobbing.

Finally, I did the only thing left I could think of and laid her down in her crib. I gave her a kiss, closed the door behind me, and went into our bedroom and did a little sobbing of my own. Then, I knelt down and prayed.

And the answer?

You're doing a good job. Just keep trying, trying, trying, trying, trying.