The other night I rushed my baby girl to bed. I rocked her in the rocking chair a little more swiftly than normal. I hoped she would go for nursing on only one side, rather than both. I sang, I hushed, I did everything I could do to get her to relax and go to sleep.
So, it came as little surprise that when I laid her down she looked back up at me, chin quivering, tears dropping, and began to cry.
Oh baby girl; I picked her before completely undoing all the “work” I had done.
My first reaction was to be frustrated. After all I had family in town with whom I desperately wanted to visit. And I was tired. That tired that sinks in after a difficult pregnancy and the following months of very, very little sleep.
“But you should be sleeping now, my darling. You’re almost a year old. We shouldn’t be fighting this, and waking up so much.”
She looked up at me, again those big blue eyes begging me, wordless, “Mommy hold me.”
We returned to the rocker, gliding back and forth.
“Rain drops and roses and whiskers on kittens…”
Her eyes closed, lulled. I sang another verse. I exhaled. My mind shifted to the nearly 5-year-old boy in the next room. It went by so fast. So so fast.
“These moments are almost over,” I whispered to myself.
Give pause. Though I cannot hold to this second, maybe, just maybe, these sweet fleeting tender moments will sit on my heart and stay just a bit longer.