Crib Meditation

Photos: Luke with his John Deere. I love the one with his eyebrow up like he's saying, "Isn't my tractor sexy?"

Right now Luke is laying in his crib totally silent and still, but with his eyes wide open. He’s exhausted but he won’t shut his eyes, it's like he's meditating on the sheet. Why do babies and kids fight sleep so hard? I look forward to sleep. I can’t wait to get in a comfy position and shut my eyes. But I remember trying so hard to stay awake when I was a kid. I even tapped my foot against the wall to try to stay awake until midnight once. It didn’t work. The rhythm actually put me to sleep.

There’s Christmas, and the promise of Santa Clause and reindeer on the roof. I don’t remember ever believing that was true, so it was never important to me to stay awake on Christmas. Then there’s New Year’s Eve, and counting down the seconds. And there’s always the excitement before a birthday or a vacation to keep a kid awake. I understand those things. And I understand that we make it a treat for kids to stay awake, so then they get excited about it and it seems like a grown-up thing to do.

The fact of the matter is that a tiny baby doesn’t really have enough comprehension to be excited about anything enough to keep them awake. When I was a kid I actually put myself to bed if I got tired. My parents thought I was responsible. But I was just tired, and if I didn’t sleep then, I certainly wasn’t going to get any sleep at school the next day. There was much too much excitement in my daily life. First of all, Amanda was there. Second of all, there was always some drama. As a kid, everything was an emergency, a party, a fight, or the most fun we’d ever had in our lives. It was a wonderful, exhilarating day, every day. Maybe that’s why I could sleep so well at night, I had worn myself out just living each day fully.

I hope Luke experiences life that way. So far it seems like he does. Watching his expressions as he wobbles around in my lap, learning how to sit on his own, it’s obvious that he’s getting a kick out of living. Everything is new and interesting. He’s getting brighter, bigger and stronger each day. I think the new-ness of it all actually keeps him awake sometimes. The other day I put him down for a nap on a scrap quilt and he lay there staring at it for half an hour before I saw him finally close his eyes. There was just too much stimulation and he couldn’t rest. Hopefully by now he’s napping on his plain blue flannel sheets. I hung a blanket over the side of the crib so he can’t see out. Hopefully that helps.