nocturnal ritual

When I was a young, first-time mother, a well-intentioned friend discovered during the course of our conversation that The Prof and I were allowing our newborn babe to share the bed with us. This friend, fresh from early childhood educational training and feeling rather plump with knowledge, advised me not to make a habit of nursing the baby to sleep or sleeping with the baby and NEVER, she warned, rock and nurse a baby to sleep. The thing to be feared was that the baby would grow into a child who is dependent on the presence of a parent or some other external assistance on the nightly journey to dreamland.

But I had a baby who was already addicted; he wanted his Mama when he was sleepy and it went against all of my instincts to deny him his rather insistent newborn wailing pleas. I chose my instincts over the advice of a dear friend and, in this case, have not regretted it.

And you know that friend was right. The children have evolved through different phases, but each one wants me at their bedside at night in one capacity or another--they count on my being there before they fall to sleep. And I say, rue the night that it isn't so! I love the nightly ritual of visiting each one, counterpane turned back, all snuggled in their beds---some nearly swallowed up by a mini-library and armed with reading lights, another with a doll in flannel pyjamas or some manner of stuffed creature cozied up close and another who resents blankets and prefers darkness to even a nightlight. I love lingering with each child to rub their backs or stroke their head while we whisper in the room dimly lit by the hall light.

This nightly ritual has both the comfort that routine offers and yet a rich spontaneity. Some nights there is little conversation and on other occasions, it can require a concerted effort to bring the chatter between the two of us down from lively to calm. I first get the wee ones to sleep and then slowly move from the most weary to the most alert in a gentle procession. We talk about the day behind us or the one ahead, we talk about current interests, we share an inside joke, or sometimes a child (or I) may have saved an important question or bit of news that required the privacy of a nocturnal exchange. One night the eldest of the girls was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag and we stayed up talking for over an hour before I insisted that we must get to bed!

Some nights, I cannot deny, I am exhausted or pre-occupied and the idea occurs to me that I would like to just give a hasty goodnight and move on with my own agenda, but, of course, children are not so willing to let go of a routine--especially one that involves one on one time with a parent. And, I am sure it will come as no surprise, that I always go to bed glad that I did not disappoint.

It will be a sad day, indeed, when I can no longer be that balm that eases my dear children into the night; but it is a ritual I will savor for as many nights as they live in my home.