Happy Baby = Happy Mom

Man, what a difference a smile makes! This pic was nabbed a few days ago. A day that involved hours of fussiness, tears, and my least favorite: screams from gas pain. I have yet to say that Lucas has colic, because I want to refuse to believe it but in truth, I do think there is a high possibility that he is one of the unlucky 20% of babies who get the condition.  

The term "colic" gets thrown out there for fussy babies way too often. I believe the diagnosing factors are if a baby cries for 3 or more hours, for 3 or more days a week, for up to 3 months. Well, in the past few weeks we definitely have at least 2 days when he cries and screams from stomach pain almost all day long. 

I've done everything within my ability to help him but nothing seems to work and it definitely has to do with his intestines ability to digest food. I guess colicky babies have muscle spasms that affect the digestive system. 

Anyway, I could go on talking about colic. Its rather interesting, especially social implications of the condition, but I will refrain as I only have a few spare moments and its not the intention of this blog.

So, last week I'd been complaining because Lucas doesn't seem to smile much. I know it takes a while for babies to start smiling but it seemed like all of the people we know who have newborns were posting pics of their smiling infants. I was jealous! I have been putting in long hard hours and our lil' one hadn't been giving us any smile love. It can make me feel like there is no end in sight to this. Like somehow my experience of being a mother is just one day of soothing fussiness over and over; my own "Groundhogs Day" nightmare. 

I think it was Wednesday when I kept bringing it up to Himay and Lucas as a sarcastic joke through out the day. This was the day that he was particularly grumpy and fussy too. But then... at the end of the day, Himay went out to Caldwell with his Mom and I was sure that I was going to have to single handedly try to soothe our screaming bundle of love. 

But then, as the daylight turned into dusk and Lucas was particularly drawn to our front window I decided to open up my laptop and play with photobooth with him. I had only taken one shot and then *BING* a gorgeous, wide-open smile stretched across his face. I was elated and amazed! I fumbled to try to capture it on the computer, but somehow I managed to get one shot. It was great though, he went through 3 or 4 series of amazed expressions with bright eyes and a beaming grin. 

Its cliché but oh so true, those are the moments that make it all worth while!

HJae<3