Are you laughing.. are you crying.. what's going on here

So my almost 7 month old, Scootchie Butt, is in that stage that involves the beginnings of temper tantrums. He hit it quite a bit earlier than my older two did, I was rather surprised. Along with the story I am about to tell you, he will lay on his pallet on the floor with his legs sticking straight out, not touching the floor, arms either straight out from the shoulders or straight by his sides fist clenched and scream. Not a come-comfort-me scream but a if-I-could-walk-you-would-feel-my-wrath kind of scream. When picked up his is rigid. At first I was terrified, some thing is wrong with my baby, I was considering taking him to the hospital, I was certain he was in pain. But my husband calmed me and we distracted the baby with a toy. Soon I began to that anytime he was denied something he wanted or something he found on the ground he would roll on to his back and do this. This has been the last three days. He will also swing one arm up and down repetitively smacking whatever he is on top of, be it me, his daddy or the floor.  I find this amusing. It's like a kitten hissing at a lion.

It began last week when I was changing his diaper. As I go to roll the prefold around his chubby little thighs he plants both feet on the mat and throws his hips into the air, screeching what sounded like "DIE". (I can only assume he was speaking to the evil contraption that is the cloth diaper which I forcibly make him wear all the time. You know, just so I don't have to clean feces and urine off of every surface in my house.) I press down lightly on his tummy and he settles, I begin the process again. Line up the prefold just right, adjust his legs, roll the diaper, and.. nope, "DIE!!". And again. Sigh, hand him a toy ball, try again. Finally I get the diaper rolled and folded up between his legs I am folding down the top and, crap.. feet planted, hips in the air. Grrr.. At this point my long hair is falling in my eyes,  I am attempting, without much success, to blow it away from my face, he is reveling in the thrill of his little victory, and the diaper is still not on his little bottom. I am frustrated and though I love him and my cloth diapers I am remembering how easy disposables were on squirmy babies, and then.. I laugh. I laugh because he not only is asserting his independence but he is happy about it, this is good. This is something to be encouraged. At the sound of my laugh he looks at me with those big blue eyes and smiles so big that my heart just melts. He settles down and the diaper goes on with no issue. Happy ending. Smiles all around   : )

But, it's not always a happy ending, sometimes it is down right frustrating for both of us. Sometimes my sweet little man is sitting in my lap or being walked around the house and I honestly don't know why he is crying. Then there are the times when he is playing while crying, and the times where I am certain he is just crying to cry. There are times when I am ready to throw in the towel and do a little screaming and crying myself. And there are times when I look at him and ask.. "Are you laughing.. are you crying.. what's going on here". I am constantly meeting his needs, or at least trying to. But lets face it.. babies are from another planet.. and they speak a different language, and sometimes they are not impressed with our feeble attempts to understand, quite frankly, sometimes.. they are down right amused.

So when your sweet little angel has spent the last half hour climbing on your face or throwing away the carrots you are trying to feed them, or just crying for no apparent reason(though you have tried to confirm they have all their needs met and are not in pain), remember.. moms, and dads, everywhere are going through the same thing, remember that you are not expected to be perfect and have a baby that never cries, or that lies perfectly still during every diaper change, or eats those carrots. Love them, trust them and yourself, hold them. It will turn out okay these years are the most precious yo have with them, and they are also the smallest. you will have 20, 30, 40+, years with them as adults. they are only little like this for 5 or less years. Enjoy it when you can, and hold on to your sanity when it is hard.