New stage: screaming

Oh goodness, Sweet Pea has entered a new phase this week.  She has learned to SHRIEK and is using this often.  She's been in a generally cranky mood and the littlest thing seems to set her off.  Since the only word she knows is "dada" and this isn't very versitile, when she wants to express herself she screams this whiny shriek to get our attention.  Often.  I know she must be teething again and I hope this is the source of her crankiness and it passes soon.  I had always been so proud that she could put herself to sleep with little to no trouble, but that has really changed the past couple of days.  Twice yesterday after I layed her down, she screamed and cried so much that she threw up everywhere.  Twice.  It's not even that I'm leaving her in there screaming for a long time.  Last night, she was in there for less than a minute before she'd thrown up.  Her shriek seems to irritate her throat, make her cough, then throw up.  Fun.  This morning she screamed forever when I put her down for a nap, kept standing up in her crib and not knowing how to lay herself back down, then screamed some more until she finally wore herself out.  And this afternoon, she threw a huge fit at naptime no matter what I tried.  I finally had to rock her in my arms standing up in her room with the white noise machine and lullaby CD blaring to drown out her screaming.  It's not that she's not tired.  It's like since she's learning all these fun new skills--like crawling, pulling herself up to standing and cruising around the furniture--that she absolutely does not want to sleep but must practice her new tricks even though she's so exhausted that she ends up collapsed on the floor screaming in tears.

Needless to say, this new stage is exhausting for me.  I love that I'm able to be home with her most of the time, but lately it's been wearing on me.  The non-stop, 24/7 neediness is tiring.  Shannon's been busy with other things most evenings lately, so it's just been me.  He hasn't been a part of our bedtime night routine in so long and it feels like I almost never get a break.  Thankfully my mom is nearby and does still come over often to help and I appreciate that more than I can express.  Shannon did get up with Sweet Pea once in the middle of the night a few nights ago and that was much appreciated too.

It's hard to feel this way.  After wanting a child for so long, it's hard to feel exhausted now that I finally have mine.  I feel guilty.  I know there's not really anything I can do at those moments, but it's easy to feel like a little bit of a bad mom when she's screaming in her crib.  But I do still love Sweet Pea dearly and would do anything in the world for her.  I'll just be glad when we get through this screaming stage...