Battlefield

It's three in the morning. Pillows and blankets are scattered on the floor. A gas medication lays open by a bedside table, along with different types and colors of pacifiers. An empty breastmilk bottle rolls on the floor, alongside a baby heating pad. The bathroom door is wide open, revealing towels, burp towels, more bottles, a bottle warmer. In adjacent rooms, two adults look ragged and barely alive. They are still breathing, though.

I am still standing, but one look in the mirror and I can see I look as if I've been through war.

Is this a civil war reenactment? No, this is the aftermath of a full night of baby colic.

He now lays peacefully in my arms, drinking his milk, cozy. I have given up sleeping. What's the point? I will be up in fifteen minutes anyway, so why not research the cause of all the ruckus online so we can fix it?

Turns out there's no real cause for baby colic. Doctors can't even blame the parents or the mother's eating habits.

I, of course, am immediately blaming myself. Was it because I ate too much chocolate while pregnant? Was it because I ate too much chocolate this week? I wonder, puzzled, as I munch on a fun size kit kat bar with my free hand.

I find it interesting that no one has been able to pinpoint what causes a) baby crying and fussy, if it is gas or muscle spasms, or b)what triggers it. Maybe scientists don't find it as interesting to research something that miraculously goes away after three months. Maybe the scientists that do have the kind of time to research something like this don't have kids, don't want kids and don't give a damn.

So we, new parents, are left with heating pads, gas medications that taste like strawberries (and only worf for the amount of time the kid can still taste - and be distracted by - the candy flavor) and a baby that squirms and hold his breath before screaming bloody murder in increasing cadence and intensity.