The Anti-trooper

If Emma was the trooper, baby Sarah was the anti-trooper. Our second little miracle arrived just a few weeks after Emma’s 4th birthday. Sarah was born 6 weeks premature and with an attitude. She spent her first 6 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where she was constantly setting off alarms because she would pluck her c-pap out of her nose and kick and kick until she dislodged the pulse-ox monitor on her heel. This kid was a fighter and I had to admit, that gave me some comfort.

The first several months with Sarah were a little rough, though. She had feeding issues and never slept more than two hours at a time until she was 8 months old. And she absolutely hated riding in the car. She would scream and cry from the moment you buckled her car seat into the car to the moment you took it out again.

For a while, we dealt with this by avoiding taking her anywhere, but eventually we had to bite the bullet and get back to our lives. Our most frequent car ride was a blessedly short trip to take Emma to and from nursery school. Emma had some sound sensitivity, so being cooped up in a car with a screaming baby was really very trying for her. Nothing we tried to calm or distract Sarah worked. She spit out the pacifiers, threw the rattles, and screamed even louder if we played music, apparently wanting to ensure that we were hearing her over the darned music! Emma desperately wanted to soothe the savage beast, so she kept trying new things to settle down her backseat-mate. One day she discovered that if she sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to her, she would quiet down. From then on, every time we would get in the car she would say, “Don’t worry Sarah. Big sissy’s going to sing to you,” and she would sweetly distract her with the song until we got to our destination. When Emma had a friend come home with her from school, she would explain the drill to them. “My sister cries a lot in the car, but she likes it when I sing Twinkle, Twinkle. You can sing too if you want to.” And then two sweet little voices would serenade us for the trip home.

For the record, Sarah grew out of her car aversion in short order and became an equally good traveler. She has handled one of the biggest challenges life can throw at you with courage, grace and faith, earning her the title of Trooper Extraordinaire.