I sometimes want to go get my baby up in the middle of night just because I miss him. I want to go in his room, pick him up out of his crib, and rock with him — longing to feel his warm weight against me. I know that this is nutbuckets. I know that I should be glad and grateful to have a child who sleeps so well, so soundly, and that I am testing the fates by even imagining disturbing him. But I do imagine it.
I am guessing that this is both a universal parenting experience and also perhaps more pronounced for first time parents, parents with just the one child. Once mine goes down, there are no others to tend to, no additional baths and goodnight routines. Once mine is down, he is down and our house is just adults and dogs and cats, so not exactly peaceful but more as we knew it prior to children. And that is nice, honestly. It is good for us, to have adult time. And, in these odd pandemic months, where we are splitting the childcare between us during the day, it is frankly also just necessary: after bedtime is when all the work that didn’t get done earlier happens. Without those hours, we would fall helplessly behind. I remind myself of this frequently when I pause at his door, debating whether it would *really* be so bad to just rock with him a little bit.
I love our bedtime ritual, love that it is me who puts him to bed. It started out that way out of necessity — Phil was not home at bedtime and I was, so, it became I who was the bedtime parent. It is not a necessity anymore, now that we both work from home. Either of us *could* be the bedtime parent. But it is me. It is my time. I feel it in my bones.
Phil, for his part, is the teeth brushing parent. He is the just-before-bedtime parent, the parent who does the wet hand off, pulling the baby out of the tub after I call up, “We are ready for you!” I retreat for 10 or 15 minutes. I don’t do much with that time, but I appreciate it nevertheless. When I return upstairs, Phil and Nyland are settled in the chair, reading a book, Nyland rapt and Phil using his best funny voices. When they finish, Nyland without fail reaches for me. He is funny, our baby, and likes to push Phil away until asked, “Hug for Dada?”, using the cue as a chance to dive face first into Phil’s shoulder for a hug.
We always do a book together, Nyland and I. Sometimes we do two, but almost never three. After, we turn out the light and get all snug-a-bug, or snuggle-buggled or snuggy-buggy. It is funny how suddenly, with kids, these words start coming out of your mouth. I say it nightly now — “Okay, let’s get snuggy-buggy!” — and I do so without shame or pause. Snuggy buggy.
And this — this is the part I love the most, the part that gets me everytime. We sit in the dark, and Nyland snuggles in, often in a mimicry of his infant resting pose, curled like a pangolin on my chest. Bigger now, he struggles to find just the right position, pulling himself up farther on my body to tuck his face into my neck, to tuck his knees in deeper, to wrap his hands around tighter. Sometimes he babbles his sweet Nyland songs, babababs and mamamas and pthpthththths, but others, he just falls asleep, in the exact position he was first placed on my chest at birth.
I listen to books while I rock him sometimes. I don’t need to. It is not that I am bored. But it is soothing, this time together with him, someone telling me a story while I rock my child, while I hold his body, warm and heavy with sleep, in my arms. It is the most relaxed I am at any point during the day, these 30 minutes. It is so precious, this time. Is it any wonder that I hunger for more of it? Why I question whether I can’t steal just a few more minutes late in the night?
My love for him overwhelms me almost always, but at bedtime, sitting in the dark, his breath condensing on my neck, it is almost palpable.
How do people survive, loving someone so much? Missing someone who is right there, still present? How have parents been doing it this long? It is a wonder, a magic trick, a feat I am still learning every day, to live with this great love.
The Belly Fish 