Sami Freaks Out

Poor little bean. ;-)

Since we recently moved into our newly constructed home, we're still dealing with a few warranty items with our homebuilder -- the occasional loose hardwood floorboard, or a failed caulking or your whatnot and the like. So our customer service rep is this seemingly very nice young man, Brice. And Brice is what... maybe late 20s, early 30s. Very mellow pleasant enough guy. Nothing menacing to him that meets the eye. At least that I can see.

On Monday, he stopped by to drop off some little fix-it items, and I answered the door with Sami in my arms, and as soon as he walked in, she started crying. Now, I now this sounds weird, but she really doesn't every really cry. She'll complain a little, and make some noise to instruct us when she's hungry, or tired, or in need of a diaper change. But she just doesn't ever really cry-cry. But she did this day. And I apologized all over, and explained that it was her naptime and she was just tired. Brice and I tried to discuss some other pending repairs, but Sami was having none of that--we literally could not hear each other over her crying, and so we scheduled a time that he would drop by the following day where we could run through the items in the house still needing attention.

Tuesday comes. And Brice arrives a little early, and I'm all "okay, she's well-rested this time; I'm sure it was just a quirk." Nuh uh. I open the door, and let Brice in, and set Sami on the sofa with her favorite toy so Brice and I can talk, and within about 10 seconds, her bottom lip curled up, and she started crying. Or maybe it is better described as screaming. Like I've never seen her do. I felt horrible for Brice, and I felt horrible for the frightened Sami, and I kept trying to talk some sense into her which as you can guess is fairly futile with a 7 month old. So I'm trying everything to calm her down and console her, and trying simultaneously to make the very self-conscious Baby Frightener feel like he's not a baby frightener, to no avail in either case. And I finally put Sami in her playpen, and hang blankets on the sides so she can't see him. And I give her a bottle to try to soothe her, which she wants nothing to do with. And I walk Brice into another area of the house, so we can talk quietly enough that she won't even hear him, apologizing and exclaiming to him how she never does this. Which of course only serves to make him feel worse. We had to get our business done, so I just had to keep going to Sami and trying to reassure her, and then I'd run back to Brice and try to show him a crack in the drywall by the window, and so on. It was really quite ridicuous. But also very heart-wrenching because Sami is friggin' sobbing and inconsolable. And I can tell that she is truly scared and upset.

This went on for nearly half an hour while we went all through the house and tried to have a reasonable, adult conversation all the while with this screaming little child, who is breaking my heart because I can't make her feel better.

Finally Brice left, and I had to go get the screaming, red-faced, tear-streaked Sami out of her playpen, and show her all through the house that he was gone. And immediately the crying stopped. There were a few leftover jagged intakes of breath like they'll do when they've just cried their little heart out. But she was okay then.

Geesh. What was up with that? Is he a secret serial killer that only she could sense? I don't think so. But she's got me wondering.