Rennie just threw a temper tantrum on the living room floor. I set him down for a tiny bit to help the other two put brown sugar on their oatmeal. This did not prove a satisfactory arrangement for him so he decided that he was going to make this a real royal fit, so passed out. Just turned blue and passed out. He’s my second child to do this. Havilah didn’t generally do this for tempers to start out with, so much as being hurt. Her episodes bother me worse now. Because she stiffens, arches her back, and almost seizes. However, she does really good lately with catching herself for a breath when prompted in the midst of her distress. It very rarely happens and is usually only if she bumps her head severely. I know enough to run the scene when I hear something catastrophic. If I get there to comfort and remind her to breath soon enough, we aren’t in as much danger of her passing out. The first time she passed out she’d fallen out of her crib and her eyes rolled and she went limp. We rushed her to the hospital only to have the doctor shrug us off. (I would have a word with doctors about how to respond to very concerned parents when there is nothing to be done medically. I understand in retrospect that there probably was nothing to be done other than observe for a while, but his manner was much less than caring. Not even sure if he looked at her.)
This totally freaks some of you moms out. I’m used to it. I was scared the first couple times Havilah did it. I guess now it’s just part of my motherhood—these little people passing out. Rennie’s episode this morning was not his first, although I think it was his worst. It bothers me because it means I have a little temper baby on my hands. Seven months old and he can throw a fit like nobody’s business. Believe me, you don’t do discipline when a child is passing out. You hold them and calm them. Once the child is Havilah’s age you can explain to her what happened. Why everything got black, and why it’s important to breath. There are some who say to throw water at the child doing this. That just isn’t what comes instinctively, and my experience with Havilah is that any kind of discipline or anything when she’s in crying silently and turning blue stage, only makes things worse.
Rennie doing this bothers me worse than Havilah’s deals. He’s plain out mad. What do you do with a baby in a rage? It just means a lot of training coming up. It means a lot of hard work. It means a strong will. It means line upon line, precept upon precept. It means a lot of prayers.
He runs my life if I let him. I’ve quit running into the living room every time I hear him holler. Generally he forgets his need to be held as soon as he can’t see me. He plays pretty nicely on his own or with his siblings. I decided I am NOT a let the baby cry it out in the crib for fifteen minutes before he goes to sleep, kind of mom. It just feels barbaric to me, if I can be so bold. However, I did figure out that 30 seconds of him yelling insults at me as I leave the room is not the end of the world. Once he gets that out of his system, he settles pretty well usually. Now when he’s old enough to put his thoughts into words as I leave the room, then we might have a problem.
Like someone said, “Why does he act so? He looks like such an angel.” Or how was that Mom? And who said it?
