Upsetness girl

Amy has been upset off and on since yesterday around dinner time.

I think part of it was that she was missing her daddy — he’s usually home by then, and he gets the dinner and bedtime routines. Yesterday, though, he had to work late — scoring a swim meet.

We got through dinner okay, and played some okay, with just little fusses here and there. Then it was time to get a new diaper and put on pajamas, and she cried just about the whole way through. I don’t know why I didn’t give her a piece of fabric — such a comfort to her.

Then she didn’t even want the bottle — not from me anyway.

That’s when Mark got home — and held her and talked with her until she was calm enough to not refuse the bottle.

She woke up in the middle of the night — rare for her. She got herself back to sleep without any intervention from us, though.

And then this morning. She didn’t eat much before she started playing with her cereal and deliberately tossing it on the floor. At playgroup she got increasingly fussy as the morning wore on, but nothing seemed to comfort her much or for long — not crackers, not milk or water, not a blanket, not being held, not being carried in the sling.

She was fine all the way home.

Then fussed during the diaper change, a little more at the beginning of nap time, and once or twice in the middle and towards the end.

I am torn between dismissing the temptation to think she’s upset with me, and taking that idea seriously and wondering what I might have done / been doing to upset her.

It could be teething. A poor night’s sleep. Residual upsetness from last evening. Too much noise at playgroup. Who knows.

It is difficult to take her upsetness seriously — to respect it and be compassionate about it — while not driving myself nuts trying to analyze it, which is probably unnecessary and impossible anyhow. And it is difficult to graciously allow myself my annoyance and frustration and stress and manage those feelings effectively and appropriately.