Guilty Thursday

From his lazy months in utero to his quiet newborn slumbers – Siraj has always been a sweet and gentle baby boy. Even as I texted (from my hospital bed) about his arrival - my first descriptions always included the words “kitten-like”. But this doesn’t mean that he isn’t a fierce and wily one too.

Each and every morning, Siraj fights me as I try to put a shirt over his head. Pants require me to practically kneel upon his chest to get him to stop rolling over. And please, don’t even ask me about socks or shoes. His little feet are actually two shades tanner than the rest of him because I don’t even bother anymore. He doesn’t cry and he doesn’t scream – he just wiggles and turns to the point you start considering just how necessary infant clothing even is. But I push onward and hold him down tight like I have captured some slippery little alligator. He giggles, Ismaeel guffaws, I sweat, and my husband watches the ticking clock. As Siraj gets a little more mobile - our morning routines take that much longer.

So, when I picked him up from daycare and saw a horrific bruise all over his tiny little wrist – I immediately blamed myself. What is wrong with me and how sleep deprived am I to hold him so tightly? How could I leave such a mark? Am I really this burned out? How did I not notice this in the morning? But wait…how could I hurt him like this and he didn’t even cry? Did he fall and is just bruising too easily? What could that mean? Why didn’t anybody else notice this? Of course, I asked if anything happened to him during the day but nobody saw or heard anything. There was no incident report to fill out so I can only assume this happened “on my watch”.

The whole thing just doesn’t make any sense. I keep re-playing the morning and can’t think of a single time that he could have been hurt. I know he didn’t have this bruise when I bathed him. I know no one would intentionally hurt him and with the exception of my rushed shower I was with Siraj the whole accident-free time. If you were to look at his purple and red wrist – you would think it was broken. And yet, he isn’t bothered when I touch it and is still happily crawling all over the place with full pressure on it.

I scoop him up (before he can hit his head on the glass coffee table) and apologize again for the thousandth time as I put him in his high chair. Even though I am sickened to my stomach I have become this oblivious bullying monster, I still need to make some dinner for Ismaeel.

Despite not having any teeth, Siraj is desperately hankering for food. As a compromise, I give him ice cubes in the mesh safety of a Sassy Teething Feeder. He loves this. He loves to hold it on his aching gums or to simply smash it against his food tray. And lately, he likes to throw it across the room with gusto. And just as my hands are covered in raw egg – he tosses it down to the floor and lets out a happy shriek for it to be returned. I call for Ismaeel to help and before Big Brother can decipher my directions – I catch Siraj taking matters into his own hands. Or should I say his bruised wrists...

Apparently his teething has gotten so bad he has taken to gnawing on his own wrist as if it was an ear of corn on the cob. Oh my poor suffering baby, you have no idea how relieved I am! What a wonderful day it is indeed when you find out that your infant son likes to give himself a hickie.

Phew! At least now my only crime is not having enough teething rings pre-chilled in the freezer. And now that I am not a delusional and abusive mother I can get back to focusing on my regular guilt list...