Homesickness

Editors Note: Big thanks to Stephanie Hedberg for the wonderful family photos below. She's great. We love her!

Lately Little E has been hitting a certain time of the night (around 8 or 9pm) where she has a meltdown and freaks out for about an hour or so. She gets so hysterical sometimes and it's just the saddest thing in the world to witness.

I call it her "time of the day" and I am using it as practice for that time when I will have to deal with her "time of the month"--something that I know is going to be a whirlwind around these parts.

The first few times I was privy to being with her for a meltdown broke my heart. I was so sad as I held her and she screamed and screamed and screamed. The only tears bigger than hers during those times were mine.

Usually I hold her close to me, almost like she's in a baby bjorn, but it's my arms. The problem is, being that close, she would sense my stress levels and I think she could tell that I was helpless and didn't know how to help alleviate whatever was ailing her. We would walk around the house, but she would just continue crying and I would continue being frustrated that I couldn't help and we'd usually end up finding Annie as fast as we could or having to go to separate rooms. I even said, out loud, to her once "Etta, darling, I can't help you if you don't tell me whats wrong." Then I realized that she was four weeks old and I was an idiot.

The last few days I have tried a different approach, and I think it's working. I keep her in that baby bjorn hold, minus the baby bjorn. From there, I walk up and down the sidewalk in front of our house, in the backyard or even around her room. During our walks, she's crying to start with, sometimes even hysterically, but I am keeping my cool. I'm talking to her, much like you would talk to an adult who was in peril.

I'm telling her how much we love her and that I'm sorry I can't help with whatever is bothering her right now, but she is just fine and she can calm down. Now, I realize that she can't understand WHAT I'm saying, but I think she can understand fully HOW I'm saying. She usually screams for a minute or so, then as I talk through it, she starts to scream intermittently before finally she stops screaming and commences smiling and then concludes with falling asleep.

Tonight as she and I were walking back and forth on the green rug in her room, I had a thought. Maybe she is just crying because she's sad that she isn't around the people that she knew and loved before coming here to be with us. Maybe she really is a little homesick. So, I asked my little seven week old if that was the problem. I asked her if she was sad because she missed Papa Wally and Grandma Flanagan. Was she sad because Bev and Roland weren't around? Did she miss Ray McCoy (because I'm convinced he was on the preparation committee that I'm convinced exists for all babies coming to earth). Did she miss being around my Grandpa Kuehnau? I'm sure I missed some people who were on that committee, but I think she was relieved.

She calmed down and even kind of smiled. It was almost like she was relieved that I finally got it. That I finally understood why she was sad. She was so happy that we were on the same page.

It was probably just gas passing that made her calm down, but I'm saying a combination of the two.

Once she calmed down, I told her that I knew she missed some very important people and I knew she was kind of out of her comfort zone. Then I promised her that we would do everything we could to make sure she was always happy.

She went cross-eyed and coughed (which I am taking as "no problem dad, we can do this together").

Then she fell asleep. (I should mention that minutes later she tried to adjust her head to get more comfortable and immediately slammed it into my chest which awoke her and shot her into a frenzy...but I'm attributing that to slamming her head on my chest rather than homesickness).

I calmed her down again from slamming her head into my chest and we moved forward with her nightly routine. She went right to sleep--where I'm sure she'll remain until well into the morning.

I can't say that I blame her. Being homesick is never any fun. But once we adjust to our new home, you never want to leave.

I only hope that even when she's older and leaves our house, she'll continue to return for walks with her daddy.