Am I the only one?

Seriously, sometimes I feel like I am the only mom with a difficult baby.  Maybe people just don't like to talk about it, but am I the only person with a baby who isn't crazy about sleep, wants to be held all the time, and cries for anyone but mom?  If I'm not the only person, then why don't other moms share their struggles?  I'm not trying to complain all the time, it's just that I am desperate for ideas from other moms on how to make my little man happy.

I don't want you to think that I am a bad mom or that I love Karter any less for this.  I know we are so blessed to have such a healthy baby.   I love him more each day and I am continually amazed at the amount of unconditional love I have for him...but there's no denying he's a tricky little baby.

While I wouldn't trade my baby for anything in the world (no, not even a good night's sleep), I do get jealous of people with seemingly perfect babies...those that sleep through the night, don't fuss, etc.  I feel like it makes me seem like a bad mom because my baby isn't happy in comparison to these other babies.  And believe me, I have tried to make him happy, but things only seem to make him happy for a short period of time.  Something that works one day he hates the next even though I keep trying.

I called the lactation consultant the other day for some advice and she spent 35 minutes giving me ideas on how to make him better and it was just frustrating after each idea to say "we've tried that, it doesn't work."  I felt by the end of the conversation she was just making up ideas to try because she wanted to give me some sort of helpful hint (ie "maybe have your husband not wear deodorant, maybe Karter doesn't like the smell"....umm, no, then I might not like my husband!)

There's that saying that "God won't give you any more than you can handle" and I find myself several times a week at night going "Ok, God, I can't handle anymore."  Apparently, God thinks I can handle more because it doesn't seem to be getting easier.  As we were up for an hour and a half last night at 3:30am and I was asking Mark why he thought we were having such a hard time, Mark wisely told me that perhaps God is teaching us patience or that our marriage is being strengthened because if we can get through this then we can get through anything.  While that seems wise and sweet now, at 3:30am it didn't seem like a very good reason to me. 

Oh well, I mean, I guess there's a chance Karter is getting all his difficultness out now and will be a perfect toddler while those other babies are terrors in their terrible two's.  Let's hope.