Real Tears

I had my first horrible mommy moment last night. Madelyn has broken out with baby acne and fairly bad (at least to my eyes) cradle cap. Jim and I gave her a bath before bed. I'm trying to get us on a routine: bath, book, bottle (while rocking), bed. All of the videos and books said that when baby has cradle cap, to wash their scalp and gently brush their head while you're washing.

So....that's what I did. And she seemed fine with it at the time. Madelyn loves her bath time - she really seems to enjoy being in the warm water. She only cries when I dress her. Or undress her for that matter. Miss Thing does not enjoy the dressing and undressing part of anything. She likes to be either fully clothed or naked as a jay bird.

After her bath, I dried her off and started to put her lotion on her - and she started to cry. Just the normal crying - nothing serious, just her telling me she's not enjoying the festivities. But...by the time I was getting to putting her onsie on her, she's in a full on melt down. The kind of crying that is silent, but with a wide open mouth and real, full on tears streaming down her face.

I couldn't even put her jammies on her - I barely got a onsie and a diaper on her. It took me a hour and a half to calm her down enough to swaddle her and attempt to take her to bed. She cried and cried while I held her, till she was hiccuping and doing the half asleep, half sob kind of crying.

I just don't know what we did wrong. If it was her poor little head, which seems rather red and raw (no more shampooing, that's for sure!) or if she was just overly tired and didn't like getting dressed.

But I do know that's the first time she's cried like that and it absolutely broke my heart!!!! Both Jim and I were just beside ourselves, we don't like it when our baby cries at all...and we certainly don't like those kinds of tears.

I sure hope those sorts of melt downs are to a minimum. I don't think Mommy can take those kinds of tears very often!