Noise

I am fairly sensitive to noise and I have really good hearing. So, when there was some unidentified droning coming from...where...the other night when my husband and I were trying to have sex, I found it very distracting. I kept getting up and having a look around, going to different windows to see if I could determine where it was coming from. I gave up and came to the conclusion that the neighbor was playing a saxophone or something and with that thought was able to get back to what I was doing.

Later that night, when I went to check on the baby who'd woken up and lay down with her for a while, I couldn't relax and sleep because I heard another droning sound. It was different from the first one. It had odd pitch changes and was really driving me crazy. I remembered once that a lightly running sink downstairs made a noise that got on my nerves before, so I went down there to check it and discovered that the noise was coming from a clock radio that was blasting pretty loudly in the extra bedroom. When I was dusting earlier that day, I must have moved the knobs on the clock radio from "off" to "alarm" or something. What could it mean that that noise I thought was coming from somewhere else was actually originating from inside my own house—from a radio I had unwittingly turned on?

When I was laying there with the baby, before I identified what it was, I was really disturbed by the strange sound and not knowing what it was. This same night, my daughter wouldn't sleep for almost 4 hours, about 9:30 pm til after 1 am. She kept tossing and turning, getting off and on the breast. I have to admit she really upset me and I got mad. Previously she acted really bratty at dinner and I had really had enough. After a little over 3 hours trying to help her sleep, I ended up having to leave her room and make her fall asleep on her own, crying her eyes out, wailing, til she finally slept. It took about 45 minutes of crying. I had tried to lay with her, tried to nurse her. I even tried the reset button, turning on the lights, reading her a couple stories, to do the bedtime process all over again. But she was just too restless.

I didn't realize til going over my utter frustration the next day that maybe the weird sound had gotten to her. I wonder if it had anything to do with her problems going to sleep. I mean, she probably had heard the sounds and maybe her unruly behavior persisted even after I turned the radio off because she didn't know, like I did, where it came from and that it was over? I know she has very sensitive ears, like I do.

That night, amidst all the aggravation and sadness, and the day after, I was also thinking of the virtual "noise" I've been exposing myself to lately in the form of my near obsessive searching out and reading bits on the web about babies, children and parenting. The more controversial the better. Bottle or breast. Homebirth or C-section. Who hits their kids? Who's doing AP? How to get toddlers to do what you want. How to love them unconditionally. Parents are too lenient today. We coddle them too much, are too focused on their self-esteem. If you don't discipline them now, they will sour forever. Blah blah blah. What can get me riled up? What can stir me to expound my opinion about something? Why was I so into all that?

Then, there was my own "noise"—from within my own house, just like that radio. I had to really listen and look inside my own realm to find out where the truly annoying droning was coming from. I felt like such a loser and a hypocrite because I didn't really like the negative feelings I had about my daughter that day, nor did I like the way I acted or the way I treated her.

In my "talk", I had vowed to eschew authoritarian parenting, yelling, hitting, etc., but in my "walk", I was being brutish and not at all the strategic, gently guiding force in her life that I wanted to be. I decided I needed a serious break from the noise and that I myself would not add to it for at least a little while til I found time to get my heart right and my head right about my kid.

Hopefully when I come back I will be less confrontational and snarky, have a more positive outlook and can be more honest.