Serenity Now

Oscar was a hard baby.  He was not fun.  There's no way around it.

He would wake up in the morning and cry.

He would lay on the floor and SCREAM.

He would take a break from eating to SCREAM.

He would SCREAM when you change his diaper.

He would SCREAM when you took his clothes off.

He would SCREAM when you put his clothes on.

He would sit in his swing and SCREAM.

He would wake up in the night and SCREAM.

We were on the verge of having his placement disrupted a few times.  The stress of having a baby that just cried at us constantly was not enjoyable in the least.  When he started spending a lot of time at his grandparents' house, that made things easier.  We stuck it out because we were only dealing with his volume and intensity three or four nights a week.  Between having Leonard and Penny, who obviously need to be fed, bathed, etc and preparing for a new baby in the coming months, the stress of Oscar was overbearing.  We almost had him removed the week of Christmas, after court, because it was determined that nothing would be done until February.  We had a change of heart, since he wasn't around a ton, and decided to stick it out until at least February when the next court date would determine more of his fate.  The morning of the day that we got the call that he would be moving to his grandparents' house, we had decided that we would see his placement through and just deal with the screaming for a few months... hoping that he would be a happier baby in a few weeks or months.  I would say that we were sad to see him go for about five minutes... then we realized how quiet it was in the house without him and all was well.

When he left, it was as if a giant weight had been lifted from our shoulders.  Evenings are calm and there are no screams or sounds of crying coming from anywhere in our house.