Meditation

I hold your head in the crook of my arm while your body stretches across my stomach and your feet rest against my hip. Your hand clenches a wad of my t-shirt. Your mouth is still twitching around the soother. This is the second-to-last time we will sit this way; you sleeping against my warm body, me typing one-handed, forced to sit still, my feet on the coffee table, my neck tense from holding the same position too long. The phone is turned off, my water glass is within reach, there is one cushion behind my back and one supporting my arm, the one that supports your head. Sometimes a fire truck will roar by our window and I lean into you, whisper shhhhhh in your ear and your eyelids flicker but stay closed.

This nap is long. Somtimes you are restless and only sleep 40 minutes before startling awake to stare at me, confused and angry at having woken. Sometimes you sleep 90 minutes and go from complete stillness to rolling over in my arms, your soft face creased by my sleeve marks and then a brilliant smile.

Until today we have accommodated this. We have tried a handful of times to teach you to sleep in your crib during the day the way you do at night but something always happens: teething. Separation anxiety. Developmental spurt. Or, we would try for a couple of days until you became so hysterical at the sight of your crib we would back off, not wanting to spoil everything.

Your eyelids are purple with veins. Your skin has a few more spots where you’ve bumped into tables, walls, chair legs. Your hair is growing straight down your forehead like the flap of an envelope and curly at the back like a pig’s tail. Your hands are still dimpled where your knuckles should be. You furrow your eyebrows while you dream. I touch the crevice between my own eyebrows, carved by 33 years of furrowing. It connects me to you.

41 weeks you slept in my body. 41 weeks you have slept outside my body but still with it; your fingers dug into my flesh lest I drop you, your head sensitive to any attempted movement, your body slack with trust and comfort and love.

I love that you sleep on me because it connects us through our breath; yours against my breast, mine ruffling your hair. It connects us through our skin; your cheek against my arm, your belly to mine. It is the next best thing to being pregnant with you; it is as safe as I ever hope to keep you now that you are apart from me and can move away.

Your face, in sleep, is human, not baby. This sleeping face is one which will greet a lover in the morning light. The view of your soft cheek will belong to someone else one day, some man or woman will watch you sleep and resist stroking your cheek that you may rest a few more minutes, selfish, that she may watch you a few more minutes.

41 weeks in; 41 weeks out. I have to believe that the symmetry is magic and when we put you in your bed tonight to fall asleep on your own for the first time you will feel that magic and understand. I have to believe that we have spent so many hours with your head on our chests so that you know, deep in your heart, that we are always here for your head to rest upon and can now rest alone, rest assured in that knowledge.

Rest, sleep, dream. And when you wake; play, learn, grow. This is what I wish for you.