I should be jumping for joy. Shouting out from the hilltops. Chanting praise through the morning. But no. All I feel is a little slice of sadness coupled by a ting of holding on. Yes, my five month old slept through the night. Twice. Two nights in a row. Typically I do not speak of these things out loud for various reasons . . .I do not want other parents to worry about their own child and his or her milestones and, I confess, mostly I do not want to jinx it. Not this. Not the promise of consecutive nights of uninterrupted sleep.
So why this sadness; this ting? My husband remarked that it is a milestone and with that a moving on; a tangible growing. Yes, it is. And so much more. It is deep. Dare I say primal. This waking with your child in the middle of the night . . . in the beginning, maybe three times, down to two, once. Waking for this tangible human action that involves the transference of nutrients through skin...love in one of its purest forms. Sitting or laying silently in the night darkness with this new being who needs you in such a basic way, this time is sacred. Yes - the effects of cumulative sleep deprivation are astounding, but I would trade this for nothing.
In the complexities of the modern world and all of the millions of ways that we have collectively removed ourselves from our humanity, this is one of the rare things left that binds us and that makes it all worth it.
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