Blood, Sweat, Tears and Love December 9, 2010

Bexie gets nosebleeds. Evil nosebleeds. Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, Friday the 13th nosebleeds. Picture this as the usual scenario:

Bexie’s in bed. Bexie has dried shnartz in nose. Bexie knuckles nose like a prize fighter. Nose trickles blood. Bexie doesn’t LIKE trickle feeling. Bexie repeatedly knuckles nose in an effort to stop trickle. Trickle becomes flow. Blood tap is turned on. Bed soon resembles crime scene and screaming ensues. Mama comes running and tries not to freak out. Bexie is laid on change table. Sodden PJs swiftly removed. Mama places her arm between Bexie’s arms and face so she can’t continue to punch herself in the face. Bexie screams like she’s being eviscerated. (Note: Bexie also does not LIKE to have her wrists held so forget that one). Mama sings ‘Happy Birthday’ 400 times in an effort to calm screaming baby. In the other room, Lotus awakes and starts to cry in sympathy. One hour, 2 bottles of stain remover, 1 load of laundry and a hoarse voice later, Lo and Bexie go back to bed. Repeat scenario as needed.

No. I’m not kidding.

How often you ask? Too often, despite an ever running humidifier, moisturizing gel up the nose and the constant caution to “be gentle with your nose Bexerella!”. It’s these little farkakta Chinese noses, you see. Apparently they are just too stinkin’ small to work properly, as evidenced by Lo’s years of nosebleeds. Only difference was that Lo was such a placid little thing that you could actually DO the prescribed nose pinch for five minutes and it would stop. Crisis over.

But Bexie? No such ruck.

But want to really understand who Bexie is at her core? Here’s what happened a couple of weeks ago…

Insert scenario above. Typical nosebleed event except this time I had raging PMS. Nuff said. So after 45 minutes of Bexie screaming like she was on a meat hook, I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and broke down. I’m was sitting on the floor with her in my arms, trying to stop her from getting at her face for the 50th time and I lost it. Started sobbing – a good ugly cry.

Bexie’s scream stopped right in its sound track, mid scream. Her eyes widened and locked on mine. Her little mouth opened and what came out? “Happ Birdie do yoooo, Happ Birdie do yoooo…” as her tiny bloody hand reached up and started to rub my arm in comfort. Of course this only made me cry harder, now out of absolute adoration for this empathetic little soul. She just kept on singing and rubbing, totally unconcerned about herself and intent on making me feel better. So there we sat. Crying, rocking, singing and rubbing. Only now, our roles were reversed.

This is reason 2,369 why I love this baby.