If I had one wish...

...it would be to put an end to the carseat screaming. Not world peace or the end of famine, or even scurvy (I just throw that in because Brad thinks it's funny when I bring up scurvy), just no more misery coming at me from the seemingly terrorized little person behind me in the car. This may seem drastic but unless you have experienced it for as many hours over the last 11+ months as I have, understanding this is lost. For me as a mother, there is nothing worse than Elias crying and me being unable to soothe him. The carseat successfully accomplishes both of these. When we're driving down I-5 in rush hour traffic, I can't pull over, take him out to help alleviate his frustration, sadness, anger, despair. It's not safe and it gets us no closer to the end of the screaming. I've tried it before. It lengthens the torture and maybe even causes more pronounced screams. Once one has tasted freedom, it's that much harder to again be enslaved.

Ugh. I try everything, too, and nothing works twice. Sometimes some things work but Elias has definitely been known to "cry all the way home." I think the farthest distance was from Salem to Portland. Talk about nerves being shot? "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills." (a favorite quote of Brad's) I do alot of the following trying to quiet the beast: I sing horrible reditions of Do Ra Me (Duane can attest to this), Six Little Ducks, You Are My Sunshine and a gaggle of other childhood favorites, I rub his fuzz head, stretching my arm around to the back seat and shhhhushhhing gently, I pass him toys, food, and drink, I try a wide variety of musical options from the radio, and of course make up songs to tunes like Farmer in the Dell that go something like, "Elias hates the car. Elias hates the Car. Hi ho the merrio, Elias hates the car..." and "We both wish we were home, because we're going insane. Hi ho..." Sometimes, I cry, too. I can't help it, it's just awful. My emotions are all over the place, probably just like his, frustration, immense helplessness, desparation, ugh.

Today, on the way home from a nice afternoon with Duane, Elias was using his new cry, very high pitched and sounding totally defeated. He started right away, when Duane was still in the car. Duane and I gave singing our best shot, but ended up sounding like dying cows and giggling quite a bit. Our lack of seriousness really rubbed Elias the wrong way and made his crying all the more intense (I believe he can sense insincerity with the singing. If he feels I am really enjoying singing and giving it my all, he calms down. If he senses he is being placated, this seems to anger him and add fuel to the fire). I really felt awful for him all the way home from Duane's house. Nothing worked until I started improvising with my own lyrics to a few songs and combo-ed that with gentle fuzz head massage. About 15 blocks shy of home, there were some breaks in the hysterics. As we approached the light at 33rd and Fremont, all that was heard was my stupid, nonsense song to Farmer in the Dell. I looked back and Elias was asleep, letting out a little sob every few breaths, you know when you are crying really hard and can't really breathe properly anymore. Poor poor sweet boy. I vowed to him to keep car travel to a minimum tomorrow.

I wonder if turning him around, when he's older and big enough, will make a difference?