Peace on the Porch

I am not a morning person by natural inclination. But as someone who deals with insomnia on a regular basis, I have learned the benefits of early morning rising. This summer my family moved into a new house which features a glorious wraparound porch facing east toward a driveway island planted with a pyramid of trees: a tall, graceful red cedar at the center, with various smaller pine trees, flowering dogwoods, hydrangeas, and other bushes sloping down towards either side. The land slopes downhill, away from the house, with a large park and pond just past it, which means I have a beautifully uninterrupted, silhouetted view of the sunrise through the trees on the island. Over the past few months of living here, I have discovered the joys of getting up early to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee, watching the sun rise.

When I first developed the habit, the sun was already fairly bright by 6am, and the birds were busy at the feeder by the time I brought my coffee out to join them. It was often quite warm even at that hour, and I padded out to the porch in bare feet and my nightclothes. But as the months have slipped by, my 6am rising has brought me out to a nearly-completely dark world, tinged with frostiness, and I toss on socks and a jacket before braving the dark. 

This morning, I felt my way over to a porch chair by the subtle glow of a crescent moon peering hazily through the clouds over the island. The world around was nearly silent, with only a distant, background hum from the highway far across the pond. A large, brief crashing sound from the woods nearby broke the silence: was that a neighbor, or a deer? In the darkness, I had no way of knowing. 

Half an hour and a full cup of coffee later, the skies have lightened and a bright rosy glow at the horizon shows me exactly where "east" is. The birds are still silent, except for the forlorn peep of some kind of shore bird whose call I don't recognize. A single car has driven past. No people, no dogs, no voices. Just peaceful quiet, as I watch the world coming into focus with the almost imperceptibly-brightening sky.

I listen for other sounds of the world coming to life. I hear the birds before I see them; a quiet shuffling in the branches, the click-click of tiny claws landing gracefully on the feeder or the shuffling of small feet in the mulch, a slight whoosh of wings as they dart back to their homes. As the sky continues to lighten, I see the occasional silhouette of a bird darting across the sky. 

The sounds grow more slowly than the light. The rumbling drone of a truck, the blue jays scolding each other awake, the pad-pad of a jogger's measured strides, the voice of a few birds quickly joined by many, my children's footsteps inside the house.

The world awakens slowly, and so do I. By the time the light and the sounds have reached their peak, I am ready to face them. Reluctantly, I leave the peace of the porch and go inside to face the day ahead with a smile on my face. 

Life is good. Even when it's hard, it's good. Even when my mind is tossing with worries and plans and life, I know I can find peace on the porch. 

Pregnancy: The Ghost of Christmas Future

I am writing this entry at three o’clock in the morning. No, I’m not up with a sick child. No, I wasn’t out partying and am just getting to bed. No, I didn’t have a four-hour nap yesterday. No, I’m not even having trouble sleeping because I can’t get comfortable. Yes, I’m exhausted. But one of the joys of pregnancy (for me, anyway), is periodic bouts of insomnia.

It seems to me that a lot of the symptoms and discomforts of pregnancy serve to prepare a woman for having a small child. Pregnancy insomnia is practice for those long nights when the baby just won’t stop crying unless you’re walking up and down the hall with her in your arms, or for those nights when he wakes up every hour on the hour and wants to be held. Those funny leg twitches you get in the middle of the night give you practice jiggling a colicky baby on your knee for hours on end. Not being able to find a comfortable position to sit in gives you practice for finding the exact position in which the baby will finally relax and stop crying.

But above and beyond all those practice skills you’ll need in a few months, there are lots of discomforts that give a mother sympathy for a baby. What are the biggest complaints of a small baby? Gas and diaper rash. The boxes of Prilosec and giant bottle of Tums on my nightstand are proof that I have sympathy for any digestive issues, and between the hemorrhoids and the constipation, you’d better believe I have sympathy for any disorders of the “undercarriage”. Even the difficulties of eating – like feeling starved, but just not wanting to eat – are often echoed from pregnancy to newbornhood.

So instead of letting myself get frustrated at the heartburn, the soreness, and the exhaustion, I’m trying to think of everything the new baby will be going through and trying to fix this moment in my mind to give me patience when he or she is dealing with upset tummy, sore bottom, and tired crankiness.

And then I’m going to get myself some warm milk, sit in the rocking chair, and turn on some soft lullabies. After all, it works for the baby.

Snuggling to Sleep

Every once in a while, Ryan goes through a bout of insomnia, or at least restless, light sleep. He goes to bed at his usual time, but at around midnight he gets restless and whines or cries a bit. Most of the time he settles himself down fairly quickly, but every once in a while I have to go in and snuggle him for a few minutes to get him back to sleep. And last night was one of those nights.

When I went in, he was flopping around like he just couldn’t get comfortable, so I picked him up and sat in the rocking chair with him. He snuggled right up against my neck and clung to me tightly, as if to say, “Thank goodness you’re here. Now I can sleep.” He still wriggled a bit, trying his head on this side and then that, tucking his legs up under him and then stretching them out, but after a few minutes he settled in to a comfortable spot. He was still awake, but I could feel his body relaxing as he calmed down. I stroked his hair and his back, and sang to him very quietly until I could hear his breathing fall into a slow, rhythmic pattern and I felt him grow heavy on my shoulder as he fell back to sleep. I carefully put him back in his crib and tiptoed back into bed.

For the past few days, I’ve been a bit of a restless sleeper myself, since Herb was out of town visiting his daughter at college. I never sleep as well when he’s not there. So when I got back into bed, I was happy to snuggle up to him and as he sleepily stroked my back and I listened to his quiet breathing, it occurred to me that Ryan and I both prefer having a bit of company when we’re trying to sleep. I guess there’s something deeply, primally comforting about having someone you trust completely by your side when you sleep. The human body instinctively feels safety in numbers, especially when it’s vulnerable and sleeping. There’s someone else to sense danger, and to help protect you if attacked. There’s warmth to be shared when two bodies are close together. It’s natural to be more relaxed and secure when there’s someone sleeping beside you.

So as much as I want Ryan to be able to get to sleep (and get back to sleep) on his own, I can hardly complain if he needs me to snuggle him to sleep every now and then. After all, he apparently gets it from his mother.

Go to Sleepy, Little Baby

For the most part, Ryan has always been a good sleeper. He slept through the night at 10 weeks and never looked back. He goes to bed at 8 or 8:30pm and doesn’t yell for us to come get him until 8:30 or 9am. (He does wake up considerably earlier, but he’s usually happy to play in his crib and sometimes even goes back to sleep for a while.) But every now and then he has a restless night, and last night was one of those nights.

He went to bed at his usual time, playing in the tub then falling asleep as soon as he finished his bottle. I was watching his crib on the monitor and he was completely out cold when Herb tucked him in. So I was very surprised a few hours later when I checked on him as I was getting ready for bed, and I found him restlessly rolling around the crib (although apparently still asleep). I tucked the blanket around him again and rubbed his back for a bit until he relaxed, but after I’d been in bed for a little while I heard him talking to himself, and then he started crying. I let him be for a while, since he’s usually good about calming himself down and going back to sleep on his own, but when he seemed to be getting more worked up instead of quieter, I went to check on him.

As soon as I came in the room, he stood up and reached out for me. I saw that he’d kicked off his blankets again and his legs felt a little cool, so I settled him in my lap and wrapped the warm blanket around him. I offered him the bottle I’d brought, but he wasn’t particularly interested. He was very content to just snuggle in my lap and rock. That’s kind of unusual, because most of the time when he has trouble sleeping and I go in, he just wants to get up and play! I thought that maybe he’d had a bad dream and would fall right back asleep. So I snuggled him close, sang him a few lullabies, and laid my cheek against his soft head. He got very quiet and relaxed, and I thought he might have fallen back to sleep so I peeked at his face and was surprised to see a pair of very wide-awake eyes gazing back at me! So I kept on rocking and singing, and soon a warm little hand was patting mine and another warm little hand was reaching up to pat my hair. He began humming quietly to himself, which is usually a sign that he’s drifting off, and I figured that in a few more minutes he’d be out cold again.

No such luck. Instead of slowly drifting to sleep, he seemed to be slowly coming back to life. The soft patting on my hand became a playful smacking, the patting of my hair became a teasing tug, and the humming became a mischievous chortle. Before I knew it, the calm bundle in my lap was squirming around, trying to climb over the back of the chair, reach over to the closet doors, and clamber down to the floor. I frustrated all those intentions by standing up and swaying, and I turned on the lullaby CD. I started to lay him in the crib, even though he was still awake, and not surprisingly I got an immediate bawl of protest. But I tucked in his fleecy blankets, gave him a few of his rags to cuddle, and rubbed his back while I sang along with the CD.

And then I used those sneaky moves that have been used by mothers immemorial. I kept singing and stayed next to the crib, but I stopped rubbing his back. Then I stopped singing, but I stayed next to the crib. And finally, I slipped silently out the door. He was still awake, but drowsy enough that he didn’t notice when I left. I slid back under the covers of my own bed without even taking off my bathrobe, figuring I’d probably be up again shortly. But no more wails were forthcoming, and eventually I relaxed and drifted back to sleep myself.

I figured that with that big “sleep gap”, he might sleep a little later this morning. Ha! Not a chance. He was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed bright and early, and didn’t even go down for a nap as early as he sometimes does. So I guess his insomnia was a lot tougher on Mom than it was on him. But I’m not complaining. Any time I get to sit and snuggle with my little boy is time well spent.