Pajamas

I didn't sleep well or much this weekend.  I didn't wake up tired, but I sure felt the fatigue once I was on the train this morning.  Might it be that the darker mornings are affecting me?  I'm more inclined to think it's that I just didn't catch up on my sleep like I usually do on the weekend.  Couldn't fall asleep Friday or Saturday.  We woke up early Saturday and Sunday.  Things to do, people to see, places to go.  I did attempt to nap on Sunday, but the hour didn't help all that much.

And so, at 6:45 tonight, my pajamas were on.  Plans to be in bed early.  Or at least, plans to relax since it's already 8:00.  These pajamas... I bought them with a gift card my mother in law gave me for my birthday.  Funny thing is, every time I would put on these pajamas, I would end up with Preston's spit up on them within 20 minutes.  And not just the small drop... the projectile spit up.  And so, I'd have to change my pajama top.  It kind of became a routine.  Finally my pajama top was clean and I could wear it!  And 20 minutes later, it was soaked. 

Preston was hard to burp.  It took a little while to figure things out, but I found good tricks to get him to burp and he would hardly ever have the huge spit up.  I would rock him from side to side.  Or lay him on his back for 20-30 seconds and there came the burp!  It was getting really difficult.  I feared so badly that Preston choked on that fateful day.  I had talked to the nanny earlier that day and she had said how he had spit up like crazy that morning.  I was really frustrated because it was happening a lot with her, yet he wasn't doing it at home anymore.  I'd told her our tricks to get him to burp and everything but that morning "he ate so fast that before I knew it, he had gone through the whole bottle".  Preston always needed to burp at least 2 times during a feeding.  It nagged at me after I got off the phone with me, because it felt like she wasn't really paying attention to him.  And then, she left him alone for 30-40 minutes and he was gone.

The coroner assured us that he didn't choke.  There was no trauma.  Yet, because there's no explanation to SIDS or unexplained deaths, it's easy to wonder.  It's easy to think the worse.  I pray to God that he didn't suffer, but I'll never really know.  It's hard to live with.  It's also difficult to live with wanting to blame the nanny, but knowing that I can't and shouldn't because there was no evidence that she did anything wrong.  It just feels wrong.  I don't like to hold grudges, nor do I want to.  Most of the time, I'm able to not think about all this.  Most of the time, I feel like it wasn't her fault... yet I'm not ready to forgive?  And that's a tough situation because God says we have to forgive.  Then again, I'm still mad at God.  Not every day.  But sometimes.

The grieving mind is an interesting one.  Constantly at odds with itself.  Anger vs. peace.  Guilt vs. forgiveness.  Highs and lows.  Intense sadness vs. laughter. 

I hope that one day, I have more days where I feel forgiving.  More days where I'm at peace with what happened, even if I'll never truly understand the reason for it's occurrence.  In the meantime, I smile at my pajamas and my needing to change my top after having changed Preston due to spit up incidences.  I'm proud that I was able to figure out tricks to getting him to burp more easily to make his life a little more comfortable.  I'm proud of my son, for his accomplishments, however few they were.  From eating 10cc (a third of an ounce) per feeding to 5 ounces per feeding.  Proud that he overcame the difficulties he had with burping.  And proud that he left me a memory that can now make me smile.