Since returning from NPM, my baby boy has become a demanding child. By which I mean to say, he wants to be held ALL THE TIME. While we were away, just the two of us, it was a Heaven-sent opportunity to bond. Back in the real world…it’s kind of a pain in the you-know-what. I find myself saying, “Nicholas! You are not the only child that needs Mommy!”
He’s a stubborn little boy, and no matter how tired he is, he will not latch on if he’s not ravenous—a switch that can flip in ten minutes. The last few days, things have been escalating. He doesn’t really eat during the day—just noodles here and there every forty-five minutes.
In fact, lately he does the vast bulk of his eating at night. The last two nights, he’s dragged me out of bed four times a night. Yes, I said—FOUR. Combine that with Julianna waking, with back door partying, and my usual neurosis about sleep, and my night, which may only last from midnight to 5:30a.m., is interrupted four to six times. I long—I positively salivate—for eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. Heck, I’d settle for six and a nap.
I’ve stopped checking the clock, because it just makes me mad, which further robs me of sleep. I gauge the time based upon whether the sky is getting light, but this morning it was still dusky when Christian’s alarm went off at 5:30. We are over the solstice hump and headed for fall. Pathetic, that I knew the days were getting shorter even before David Lile brought it up on the radio this morning.
Last night Nicholas woke the (um, let me count) third time with a stuffy nose. So now I know he has a reason for waking up, which does nothing to help me feel rested, but at least it makes me feel less resentful.
After I put Alex and Julianna down for nap today, I tried to nurse Nicholas to sleep. Naturally, he wanted nothing to do with that. As I stood rocking him beside my bed, the phone rang. I grabbed it and plopped down against the pillows with the baby against my chest. It was Christian. We talked for two minutes and got off the phone. Poor baby, he was so shot that he was already asleep. I almost rolled over and laid him down, making good my escape, but something whispered in my brain: Don’t waste this moment. You’ve done lots of work already today. And so, for a just a few minutes, I drank in the weight of his body on mine, the softness of his hair against my cheek, the quiet rhythm of each breath. It was a fleeting moment, but a moment of beauty nonetheless. Surely someday, Mommy will get some nice long moments of beauty at night, too.
Kathleen M. Basi 