Grouchy

Isn't it interesting that whenever your baby is grouchy in public, everybody seems to think that they know how to fix it better than you? Old men; young, single, female BYU students.... Sometimes I find myself thinking, if making my baby happy were as easy as that, I would have done it already. I'm his mother, for heaven's sake! It's possible that I might have some idea of what's going on with him and what he likes.

I have lost count of how many (well-meaning, I'm sure) people have looked at my fussing child (who, by the way has just eaten) and said, "he must be hungry." How on earth would they know? Recently, I was at the grocery store with Asher, who was sick of being in the grocery cart and was just starting to get tired. He wasn't crying outright, but he was starting to fuss quietly off and on. The very nice woman behind me in the check-out line decided that she knew just how to cheer him up, and (without asking me about it, of course) put her face right up to Asher's, and started talking to him in a strange voice. The result? Hysterical crying, causing me to have to pick up my poor, abused child and hold him while finishing checking out so as to remove him from the scary stranger's clutches.

And what do I say to these random people who don't know my son from Adam? What I would like to say, is "please do not touch or breathe into the face of my baby, and leave the care and comforting of him to me." But instead, I plaster on a smile and say something like, "he's just tired," so that the scary stranger who made my baby cry won't feel like it's their fault.

One of these times, though... grrrrr...