Irritable

Iyyar is not a colicky baby. Barak was not a colicky baby. But both of them, like all babies, cry when they're tired or overstimulated. I took Barak to one wedding and that was it--a night of hysterical crying taught me not to do it again. Iyyar can handle shul if it isn't too crowded or noisy, but I wouldn't try taking him to, say, a bar mitzvah unless he was already asleep in the sling.

This afternoon I took him to an afternoon open house that some friends had for their son and daughter-in-law, here for a few weeks from Israel with a new baby. Iyyar slept on the walk there, and then woke up feeling hungry. So he cried, and I went upstairs to a bedroom and fed him. He was still out of sorts, and when I went downstairs to a small living room full of too many people eating and talking, it didn't go over well. He wanted a nice quiet place to sit on Imma's lap, and although he did spent a few minutes quietly in the sling staring intently at the goings-on, he had clearly had enough very shortly. So he started to cry. I should have just turned around and left, but I was waiting for MHH to come with Barak and I didn't want to miss them.

Why, why, why, do people do such totally unhelpful things when someone has a crying baby in public? Like, you know, getting in the baby's face to ASK THE BABY WHY HE'S CRYING. Or informing the mother that "he's not a happy baby, is he?" Why, my goodness, he isn't, and thank YOU so much for making it worse.

When I visited my grandmother with Barak, aged then six months, he had been on a really good schedule that of course got blown to pieces by the trip. He would nap every morning on the bus out to my grandmother's (she is in a nursing home and I stayed in a hotel that was 15 minutes by car, 45 by bus) but then, two hours into the visit, would get tired. And he'd start to kvetch gently, and I'd nurse him, and he'd kvetch a little more on his way to being asleep when some little old lady would get in his face and shout, "WHY ARE YOU CRYING! STOP CRYING! IT'S NOT GOOD TO CRY! HERE, HAVE THIS CANDY!" Which would, of course, make him wake up and cry. Oh, and don't even get me started on the Snugli. Barak loved the Snugli. He'd either watch the world happily or go right to sleep. But every little old Hungarian lady had to cluck disapprovingly and inform me that he was either a) definitely hungry, b) certainly shivering, or c) undoubtedly not getting any air (even though his entire face was nakedly exposed to the elements). After a few days of this, I crossed the street whenever an old lady approached and informed my grandmother grimly that I planned to attach a sign to the Snugli stating, in Hungarian of course, "He's not hungry, he's not shivering, and yes, he can breathe in there!"

Grr.

And while I'm on the subject...

Oh, never mind. I just don't feel like ranting any more.

Stupid people annoy me. Let's just leave it there.

(But I will put in a sentence, on the other side of my annoyance, about my neighbor who still seems to be allowing her barely-three-year-old daughter to play up and down the sidewalk ALONE. Even though we live on a street with, you know, cars, and there have been several attempted abductions in our area in the past year. Now THAT, my friends, is stupid.)