A Rocking Meditation For Two

Most Amazing Boy To Ever Live
(photo is just too irresistible to not post a second time)

You've all heard me complain about sleep on no less than several hundred occasions (I'm a broken record!).  Every night is a crap shoot as to how things are gonna play out.  Will he just play for a little while and then peacefully conk out?  Is he gonna scream bloody murder for 5 minutes and then conk out but awaken 5 times throughout the night for no reason apparent to us?  Am I going to make it emotionally, mentally and spiritually to reach his 18th birthday with all this sleep stuff screwing with me?  It's all a mystery.

After our usual routine of books, teeth brushing and "Nina Sleeps" from our cable On Demand feature I was ready for the night to end.  (That "Nina Sleeps" program could cause drowsiness after a week of sleep, it is that powerful.)  I put Boy in bed and prayed he would settle himself.

He did not.

Now this is the point in the story where I usually start to lose it.  "It" meaning my mind.  "It" meaning hope. "It" meaning my faith in whether I can successfully pull this Mommy thing off.  Fatigued myself, I start talking to The Boy on the video monitor as if he [a] can hear me, and [b] will follow my instruction.  "Go to bed, Boy!  Please," I plead, "Mommy will buy you your very own horsie, Ford F150 and city bus first thing in the morning if you just go to sleep now!"  My blood pressure begins to sky rocket and no matter what I try to ignore the crying toddler I just cannot tune him out.  I can't read, watch tv, prepare for sleep myself...I'm full of anxiety.  I get stressed, angry, sad, blah blah blah insert horrible feeling emotion here.

So tonight I switched tactics.

Why am I doing this?!?!  Who says I have to let him cry in there?  We both hate it!  Tonight he just doesn't want to do this sleep thing and tonight I am just not gonna force the issue or get angry and stressed.  Accept it, Mrs. Jarcy!  So I got him out of his crib.  I changed his diaper.  I stared at him for a long time as he laid there on the changing table staring back up at me.  I smiled and played with his lovely curls, caressed his smooth cheeks. We both were calm.  I touched my nose to his said, "Honk, honk."  He took his finger and touched my nose.  "Gah!" he said.  ("Gah" is the universal word used to identify everything.)  "Yes, Boy, that's Mama's nose."  Then he pointed out my hair, my eyes, my mouth.  I pointed out all his facial features in return.

I didn't know what to do with him next so I held him in my arms.  We rocked back and forth.  I simply loved him with all my might.  He put his head down on my shoulder and his body sunk into my torso.  It felt so nice.  Usually he's running all over the place and I can't get him to sit still longer than 5 seconds.  I'll hold him as long as he'll let me, I thought.  We rocked about the apartment as I turned off lights.  I turned on an Enya cd and we rocked for a good 15 minutes in the middle of the living room.  I felt so lucky to have that moment with him.  It reminded me of when he was a newborn and Mr. Jarcy and I would have to rock him for hours.  If we weren't rocking him then chances were he was not sleeping.  It was so stressful back then!  But not now, this rocking was like a moving meditation for the two of us.  My arms hurt from holding his 30 lb. body but I didn't care.  I just kept rocking, enjoying the music, really enjoying the lack of crying and really, really enjoying him.

He fell asleep.

There's no telling what the next bedtime will bring.  I don't think I can rock 30 lbs of Boy to bed every night nor do I think he'll want that.  But there are those moments in life when you think, "I am never going to forget this moment" and it was one of them.  For both of us.