The Makers of Car Alarms Should Be Shot, Or The Little Angel Cries Until She Pukes

Last night, the little angel was not into going to bed.  My beloved was at a basketball game, so I decided to let her cry for a little while. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice and knew from the frequent eye-rubbing that she was genuinely tired.

After about fifteen minutes, the neighbor's car alarm went off.  The little angel's cries took on a fever pitch.  Now, there's a difference between letting her cry herself to sleep and letting her undergo genuine terror, so I went upstairs to reassure her everything was okay.  As I opened the door, I saw her standing in her crib spewing white chunks all over the floor, her sheet and her pajamas.  Thank goodness she had already thrown Tad the Singing Frog and Gray Kitty clear.  The Bunny Slippers were also spared the wreckage.

I pulled her from the crib.  "It's okay, honey," I said, holding her out at arm's length (difficult, since I think my recurrent repetitive stress injury had actually pulled a muscle last night - it's still quite painful on the day I'm SUPPOSED to get my long-awaited massage, dammit).  "It's just a car.  It's just a car."  I put her on the floor to try to ascertain what to clean up first.  The vomit made a little puddle on the sheet and was dripping from the crib rails to the floor.

She followed me around the house as I gathered cleaning supplies, still sputtering. "Jess a cah," she said.  "Jess a cah."

I pulled the sheets from her bed.  She reached out to touch the vomit on the crib rail.  "No, no," I said.  "Yucky."

"Yucky.  Jess a cah."

We cleaned up the floor - it's currently undergoing Resolve Therapy, but just then, there was no way I was going to subject her to the hated vacuum cleaner.  I changed her diaper and her pajamas, wiped the snot, tears and vomit from her chin.  Her blue eyes shone with love.  "Jess a cah," she said solemnly.

"Yes," I said.  "A car.  Vroom, vroom.  Not bad.  Not scary."  Well, not until she gets her license, anyway.

I put her back in her clean bed.  She laid down obediently.  "Sleepy," I said, and turned on the thankfully unscathed Tad.  By the time he'd gone through six minutes till night-night, she was out.

I went downstairs to throw the stinky mess in the laundry, pondering if I'd done something wrong.  I'm not a mean person.  I don't mean to let my child cry until she pukes.  This is the second time this has happened. The first time I was also letting her cry herself to sleep when the Ghetto Bird went over.  This seems to only happen when she's already upset and then hears a scary, unidentified noise.

I called my parents.  "The little angel cried until she puked again," I said.

My mother sighed.  "It's okay, honey.  You didn't do anything wrong."

"Do you think she'll live?" I asked.  I am not a dramatic person AT ALL.

"Yes," Ma said.  "Do you want to talk to your father?"  This is an avoidance technique, but I accepted it.  I felt oddly calm.  I do know that she's going to live.  Actually, I was really just glad it was all over and I might still get to drink my wine and watch a movie.

My father came on the line.  "I think she'll be fine," he said.  "We'll be there tomorrow."  My parents are coming in tonight to watch the little angel while my beloved and I host the fourth annual Santa Pub Crawl.  He dressed up like Santa so we can make asses of ourselves in our own neighborhood with our friends and whatever stragglers we can pick up along the way.

"Okay," I said.  "That's all I had."

"Good night, honey," they said.

I sat back, drinking my wine, and thought of the memory I have of crying myself to sleep.  There's only one, and I have no idea how old I was, except that I remember my bed being against the east wall of my bedroom, which I don't think actually happened until I was a little older.  I do remember the night, though. I cried and cried - probably for a very long time - the little angel comes by her extreme emotional outbursts honestly - and then finally realized that nobody was going to come.  I remember screaming a little harder upon this realization, then deciding since it wasn't working that I would just go to sleep.  This memory is helpful when I'm letting the angel cry. 

I've read literally hundreds of entries on various parenting message boards from parents who are not willing to let their children cry for more than ten minutes.  We've been known to let the angel cry for hours in our quest for sleep.  We're not mean - we love her very much - but we do know that it's a hard world out there for kids who can't learn to depend on themselves.  She's cried a hundred times when we left her at daycare or with a sitter, and she doesn't cry anymore.  She willingly runs off to play with her friends, wielding her banana, when I drop her off now. This morning she didn't even look back when she ran into the room. 

I do want to give her the gift of self-reliance.  Letting her cry herself to sleep may seem harsh - especially when vomit is involved - but I believe she does know that we would never let her honestly suffer if something is very wrong or she is very terrified.  I think she's also starting to learn that in the battle of wills, we're equally matched.

She slept all night long until 7 a.m.  That's the longest she's slept in probably a year.  At this point, I've stopped thinking I can understand her patterns.  I'm just happy I got to sleep so long.

Now I've just got to figure out how to fix my back.