"Some babies do that."

My Sammie has this thing that she does. When she gets mad, she has a tendency to lose her breath. There's this silence instead of a cry and the cry doesn't come. Instead, she simply reaches and reaches for the cry, but fails and then passes out. I've witnessed it twice and I think that Paige has, too. Sammie's pediatrician assures us that we shouldn't worry and that "some babies do that." After she passes out, she'll start to breathe again and everything will be fine.

My second and most intense experience with this was last night. I put her into her swing so that I could have my hands free to tend to something routine and insignificant. She started to fuss and instead of picking her up immediately, I thought I'd give her a minute to adjust and maybe I could get done whatever it was I was trying to deal with. Instead of the cry, however, there was just that pained silence from my little girl. I saw her struggle and I lifted her from her swing. No sound. She was losing color in her face and I felt that conflict between panic and remembering what the doctor said. Remembering tips and tricks I'd heard before, I blew in her face to startle her back to consciousness. It didn't work though and she went blue in the face and limp in my arms. I continued to desperately blow in her face and call her name and she finally came back around but probably no thanks to my efforts. My Sammie was still a bit dazed and it wasn't until a minute or so later when she started crying that I was no longer worried. Just like her doctor said. Some babies do that.

My question to anyone reading: Have you ever experienced this? Sammie is my fourth baby. I've never seen this before and, of course, there's nothing scarier as a parent than to deal with this scenario. "Some babies do that" isn't a phrase that makes it much easier either. Since blowing in her face to startle her didn't seem to work, are there other tips for helping her catch her breath before she passes out again? Making sure she's never, ever unhappy again will be one solution, but probably not something I can count on.

Listening to Brett Rosenberg

I got a new favorite bunch of songs that I'm listening to this morning. Brett Rosenberg, recommended by The Joiners on their site, is exactly perfect for the new music I needed to find. Listen to his muxtape recordings in full here. Here's hoping you dig it. Have a nice day.

The Musical Saw

A melancholy mood snuck up on me tonight. Lucky for me, I can complement that mood with appropriate music played with the perfect instrument: the musical saw. It's used yearningly and woefully on The Black Rider's "November" by Tom Waits. It's also the instrument of choice by the man billed simply as "Tried To Escape" in 1991's wildly eclectic and imaginative Delicatessen, featured below.