Major Meltdown...

...Not me, but my soon-to-be 16-month son TJ.

I first tried laying him in bed with his sisters and they could all fall asleep together...not his normal bed-time procedure, but I thought I'd try this again like I did the other night. He sat in there at the end of their bed and cried. I could tell he was getting tired as he was "yawn-crying". He wasn't really serious about crying but was just doing it to voice his displeasure, I suppose.

Well, Kelley had enough of it. "Mom, can you come get TJ. I need to get to sleep." Yeah, uh-huh. So I went to get TJ. His nose is running and so I get a tissue to wipe it and he begins fighting with me, turning his head away, twisting, etc. Once in awhile he's actually sat still and let me wipe it and I don't understand why he doesn't like it. I'm gentle about it. But he just doesn't like it right now and so begins writhing away from the tissue and begins screaming and throwing a fit. So I wipe his nose and leave him in my bed to have his little fit and walk out. Now he normally sleeps with me so it's no big deal him being in my bed. But I've never left him in there crying.

Well, he didn't like that. Now think about what all this crying is doing to his nose situation...it's just really not helping it to stop running. He's going to need more nose wiping. Which will result in more fussing. And the cycle continues.

After a time, I went back in and sat down and held him, soothing him and calming him. I imagined he probably had a major headache after all this crying. He calmed down until he was quiet except for a few up-breaths here and there, you know that "hiccuping" kind of breathing (though it's not hiccups) after a really good cry? So I layed him back down and nursed him (which was part of the initial problem probably because he was so congested in his nose he couldn't breathe while nursing earlier). And he went right to sleep.

I do know he is teething. He has a top molar coming in on the right and left. But he's never had such a fit teething as he did tonight. Perhaps some of it is that he's missing his daddy. I don't know how a baby would manifest that. So maybe this is it. I don't know. I'm just glad that he's finally asleep at 1 AM.

I think I'll go calm down now and crochet something. Or rather....I'm going to crochet something and calm down. After all, it does go in that order.