>The first nightmare

>This weekend my sister and nephew came down to visit.  It was Friday night, we’d all had busy weeks, and had settled in for a good post-baby-bedtime chat when we heard a cry.  “Yours or mine?” we always ask each other and look at the two monitors broadcasting each boy’s room.  It was mine.  That’s weird, I thought.  He hasn’t done that for a long time.  I paused, waited for a minute, then heard a choked sob and a “peez…Mama…peez.”  ?

When I walked into the room, Sebastian was sobbing and lifted his little arms up to me, asking to get up, please.  Since he’s been getting some molars, I asked him if his mouth was hurting, but he just clung to me and said he wanted to “sit chair wif mama.”  I sat down with him and rocked.  He had his Toby and his pacifier and he curled his body up into my lap, head against my chest.  We sat there until he had fallen back to sleep, at which point I stood up, he woke up, and I was able to put him in bed as though it were his usual bedtime complete with “sleep well” and “see you in the morning.”

But that half hour.  It was bliss.  My baby didn’t like to be rocked when he was born.  He wanted to bounce.  I spent hours on an exercise ball soothing him through his first few months.  When we sat in the lovely glider my sibs gave us, it was always in locked position so I could nurse him.  We still sit in it every day and I love it, but he rarely wanted to just hang out and relax with me there.  It was always chatting or reading books once the nursing was over.

So though it was a tough moment to know that my baby is now so big he hardly fits on my lap and that he’s old enough to start having sad or scary dreams, it was also that moment when I remembered exactly why I wanted to become a mother.  This boy loved me, was sure I would come to help him when he was sad, and felt safe enough in my arms to brave going back to sleep.  As we slowly rocked and I hummed “twinkle, twinkle little star,” I even forgot that I was nervous about starting all over again in a few months.