Rest

Max and I ... 2006

"Think of a child asleep in her mother's arm; the abandon with which she gives herself to sleep can only be because she has complete trust in the arms that hold her.  She is not lying asleep on that heart because she is worn out with anxiety.  She is asleep there because it is a delight to her to be asleep there.  The mother rests too.  She rests in her child's rest.  Her mind and body rest in her.  

Lucy ... 2008

Her head fits into the crook of her curved arm.  Their warmth is mingled like the warmth of two softly burning flames.  She rocks to and fro, and her rocking is unconsciously timed by her child's breathing.  Rest is a communion between them.  It is a culmination of content.  On the child's part, utter trust in her mother; on the mother's part, sheer joy in the power of her love to sustain her life."

- Caryll Houselander, A Child in Winter

I've been thinking a lot about rest this week ... mainly because over the past two years I've haven't gotten a lot of it and now I'm starting to catch up on my sleep.

I remember after my Dad's heart attack and subsequent heart surgery, that he said he felt better than he had in a long time.  Now that all the blood could flow again and there were no blockages, he felt amazing!  He hadn't noticed before that he wasn't fully functioning because it was a gradual change and the blockages had been there and his body just adjusted to it.  I think that sleep for the first year or so after a new baby is kind of like that, too.  After maybe the first three months or so, you don't notice how tired you are, though you know you are tired, because your body and mind adjust and adapt.  Veterans of the trenchs of newborn mothering know this as "keepin' on keepin' on" ... 

How do you function without sleep and take care of a new baby?  Well, sometimes it isn't pretty, but you do it because you must.  There isn't a choice.  Then, bing!  One night you get more than 4 hours of sleep and you wake up feeling amazing!  And, even though part of your brain knows you can't possibly feel that great because 4 hours isn't really so long, the thing is you really do feel rested.  When you start getting normal, undisturbed sleep again, like 6 or more hours, and know once more what it feels like to be REALLY rested, you realize just how bone-weary tired you've really been.  Or, at least it is like that for about the first year after a new baby for me, at any rate.

There are almost five years between Jillian and Max and then whoosh!  Not quite 23 months between Max and Lucy.  I feel like I was just starting to get used to having a baby in the house again - really hitting my diaper changing, breastfeeding, super-mama groove if you will -  when suddenly there were two!  (all you moms of twins or babies less than a  year apart are laughing at me, I realize) Max was just a baby himself when we found out I was pregnant with Lucy ... only a few months older than she is now when she was born, which is almost impossible for me to imagine today.  

Max and Lucy

I started this year with two babies ... two in diapers, two nursing, two needing so much of me.  Now, as 2009 draws to a close, the most obvious sign to me that things have changed is the fact that I can now leave the house with just a single diaper in my purse (not even a diaper bag).  Max seems to be leaving all essence of toddlerhood behind while Lucy has fully launched herself into it.  Where have my babies gone?  

It was a sleepless two years. But, now, as I feel myself emerging on the other side of it, there is a part of me so proud of myself for the mothering that I did to all three of my children.  Yes, there were bad days.  Emotional days. Yes, there were times I felt stretched too thin, that my oldest child was being short-changed, or that I couldn't possibly be everything I needed to be for all the loves in my life.  I'm sure those day will still happen, I think the whole month of November proves that, perhaps for all of my life as a parent ... but I've learned to adapt, to be easier on my self, to look for the light and to ask for help when I need it.  

And, most importantly for Max, I think, was the fact that Chris and I stayed committed not to rush him out of his babyhood just because there was another little bird in the nest.

oh, those tender days of babyhood ... those sweet, fleeting moments ... I would not trade them for a life-time of full night's sleep!  Every waking, rocking, nursing, holding, hugging, singing, cuddling moment is so, so worth it. With all of my babies.

My nights are rarely sleepless now.  I rest. A good solid 6 or 7 hours most nights, which certainly wasn't happening this time a year ago.  It is a rest that, if I may say so, I have earned.