Separation Anxiety

Have I mentioned how fantastic my in-laws are? They are brilliant, they respect us as parents, they do as we ask with things relating to our children, and every Tuesday morning they look after Robert (which gives me time for Christopher, and a bit of me time during his naps), and then in the afternoon, they bring Robert back, and my mother-in-law looks after the boys while I go and do the weekly shop with my father-in-law.

Robert tends to go to sleep for his nap shortly after they get here in the afternoon, and Christopher may or may not be having his.

The last two weeks though when Christopher has been awake on my leaving to go shopping, I have come back to find that he has been screaming solidly since about 20 minutes after my departure. :( Words cannot describe how awful this makes me feel, nothing my mother-in-law did helped console him, he realised I wasn't there, and it was only seeing me that made him happy again.

Next week, if he is awake (and not due a nap) when I go to do the weekly shop, Christopher will come with us. I cannot bear to have my sweet baby boy go through such torture, thinking his Mummy has abandoned him :( My poor little guy. :( Yesterday, I gave him a cuddle for 5 minutes, then went to put away the cold shopping, and he started screaming again. Now I know some babies do this a lot, but Christopher NEVER screams, not like that. He cries sometimes, yes. He grumbles a fair amount when he is sleepy, and he cries when he wakes in the night with a rumbling tummy. But that is the ONLY time I've heard him scream.

I am not going to put him through that again for the sake of "getting him used to it". He is not even six months old for goodness sake! Yes, at some point, he IS going to have to get used to being apart from me, but not yet. Poor little love.

I still can't believe how much love the human heart is capable of storing. I remember Alice saying once how instead of your love being shared amongst your children, with each child your heart grows an extra chamber, an extra pocket of love. It's true. I love Christopher more and more with each passing day, and the same for Robert. The capabilities of a mother absolutely blow my mind, this is definitely Mother Nature at her finest.