The Oft-Talked About Time When the Crying Subsides.

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I'm not sure if Adelyn actually had colic, if I even believe in it, if she was just going through a phase or had something irking her we couldn't see, but I do know that it has passed. When your baby is crying for no reason and you have no idea what to do, you of course turn to other women who have been there, either in your life or online. I can't tell you how many times I read about that magical day when suddenly all the fussiness stopped--it seems to be a common denominator for all new mothers trying to figure out this new creature that's taken over their lives. Usually at three months, four, five, six. Over and over again I heard it that, suddenly, one day it would just be better. Not that it was bad before, but it felt, sometimes, like a constant Rubik's cube. The cutest and slobberiest Rubik's cube there ever was. But still a mystery.

I can't pinpoint exactly what day it happened. Right before we left for our honeymoon things were starting to fall into place in our life with Addy. And while we were gone Jason's parents kept saying how perfect she'd been, how they'd been having the most amazing time with her. And then my parents, too, when they watched her the last two days. My mom told me it felt different, now, taking care of this baby. Because crying had been replaced with smiling, giggling. Now you can hold onto her waist and she sits up on her own--and nothing makes her happier--and she burps all by herself. She can play in that jumper for thirty minutes if you let her, and she never stops squealing.

The only part, I guess, that hadn't improved was her sleeping at night. For almost three months Adelyn slept through the night like clockwork. I stopped even anticipating a possible middle of the night crying fit and just slept. And when I woke up, Adelyn woke up. Right before the wedding she started waking up at least once a night (which is totally normal, I know), sometimes two times, sometimes three. We went from beginning the day at seven to a five a.m. wake up call--and after that five a.m. feeding there was nothing, not even the best of our rocking, that could get that girl back to sleep.

On Monday night the monitor went off at two a.m. as usual. My eyes shot open and I lay there, listening, working up the momentum to stand, walk downstairs and make a bottle. But she wasn't crying yet, just chattering to herself. This is the usual routine--she wakes up, chatters and babbles for about twenty minutes, and then when no one has come to be her captive audience she starts crying. On Tuesday, though, the crying never came, and I stayed awake for an hour just listening to her talking away happily. Finally she fell back asleep and slept until seven.

Yesterday her great grandparents came over and watched her for a few hours while I went to meetings for my new job, and she, again, was perfect. (My dad watched her by himself for the first time Tuesday while I went to a meeting. Addy was a little fussy but when I came home she was asleep in her bouncer and my dad was singing to her. He didn't hear me come in so I got to witness this in its full adorableness.) And this has been my main source of worry--when I start this new job officially in a few weeks, Adelyn will be with a babysitter for two, sometimes three, days of the week. When we're at home I will still be working, whenever I can fit it in and often (I'm guessing) after she's fallen asleep. In order to work a full-time job partially at home I need to have some semblance of a predictable schedule. And I need some semblance of a decent night's sleep.

And last night was even better. She woke up to chat around three, but this time for only about ten minutes. And then she slept until seven thirty.

I think this all fully hit me on Tuesday, when Jason came home for lunch unexpectedly. When the door swung open I was laying on the floor of our living room with Addy sitting on my stomach, giggling and looking down on me. Sometimes it takes being caught in the act of your day-to-day life to make you really stop and think about it. Every now and then Jason will stop by for lunch and if I'm home he'll help me out while he can, grabbing me a bottle, entertaining Addy while I check my e-mail. This time it hit me that Addy hadn't cried once the entire day.

"It's getting so much easier, isn't it?" Jason asked the second he saw us. It was then I realized that yes, it has. We've finally reached that point I've been reading about for months. It's easier. More predictable. There's more smiling than there is crying, more new discoveries than there are defeats. It's not easy, no. But it's easier.

Four and a half months: for us, the time came then.