Maladroit Monday

After our successful Saturday and quiet Sunday, we thought we'd try another outing today. (Plus we were out of such olfactory necessities as deodorant and cat litter.) Madeline seemed unlikely to cooperate until noon or so, when she was very full and flirting with sleep. At that point, we strapped her in her car seat and set out for Seekonk.

She let us know pretty quickly that today would be a little more complicated than we've been used to: not five minutes from home she exploded into gut-wrenching (both our guts and, by the sound of things, hers too) cries. Our first destination -- Panera, the closest thing to an oasis in Seekonk's sea of concrete and grease -- wasn't far, so it was only a minute or two before Madeline was out of her seat and in Summer's arms. And ... (guess) ... feeding.

I went in and picked out lunch, which we scarfed in the car.

Target is only a few minutes from Panera, but Madeline took full advantage of those few minutes to share her thoughts very openly. This time around, her cries were so intense that some were choked off mid-vocalization, resulting in a horrible sort of rasping sound. So we had another parking lot pow-w0w, at which I changed her marginally dirty diaper and Summer provided her with even more sustenance. After a while -- by this time it was around 2 pm -- we deemed ourselves ready to attempt the store itself. So began Madeline's indoctrination into consumer culture.

Target is an overwhelming place even to me, so it wasn't a great surprise that Madeline's reaction ranged from wide-eyed wonderment to shrieks of all-my-needs-are-met-but-this-place-is-crazy-what-is-going-on-I've-got-to-SHOUT type displeasure. Pictured is probably her calmest moment, at the very end after the wonderment and shrieks had given way to exhaustion.

Luckily, 2 pm on a Monday is apparently when all the parents (ok, so everyone other than me was a mom) of babies shop. We were spared from feeling bad about Madeline's outbursts because our entire trip was punctuated by regular cries, shouts, and other expressions of infantile unhappiness echoing off the high ceilings from who-knows-where else in the store. Madeline fit right in. And we quickly selected our purchases and evacuated.

It seems that, maybe, Madeline just doesn't like Massachusetts. This was her first trip out of Rhode Island, after all. In any event, she started crying around the state line on the way out, and stopped once we were heading home.

When we got home ... (again, guess!) ... Madeline was tired. She's been sleeping, mostly on me, since then. It's about 5 now. We're cozy in the glider in the nursery:

Summer's been busy around the house, saying she's happy to be doing things (based on what I've been hearing, laundry and dishes have been in the mix). And here I sit -- nay, recline -- lazy as can be, intervening to calm Madeline when she stirs but otherwise only listening to her breathing, intercut from time to time with baby sighs and staccato gasp sequences, and checking out her ever-more prominent blonde locks:

So Monday's working out all right, I guess.

(P.S. It seemed that the carrier portion of our car seat wouldn't fit on the sitting part of the shopping cart, though other parents employed that setup to their advantage. If anyone has tips for making the setup work, please let us know!)