Countdown Jack

You have been having increasing difficulty even taking the one brief afternoon nap which you know condescend to offer your poor mamma as a daily respite. Some days you surprise me, like yesterday, when you took my hand, pretty behaved as could be and walked with me to the bedroom, saying "Nap" quite contently. You climbed to your spot in the bed, requested "blanket" be pulled over you, asked "bottle," handed it off to me, asked "binkie" (or bin-yay - lately you have been drifting more and more away from your previously favored term) and drifted calmly off to sleep.

Whew, I thought. Little man is getting the hang of this nap thing.

And then there was today - today when you sighted the bed and started fighting like a wild animal. When you chucked both bottle and binkie across the room - and fought like one possessed when I lay down with you and put my arms around you, shrieking at the the top of your lungs. "stop, noooooo, poopy, no want, stop..." (any phrase you could come up with to delay the napping part of the day). Finally I remembered counting and said 'Jack, counting, remember, let's count..." I started off slowly and your tensely arched screaming body immediately relaxed...I didn't even make it to 30 before you were asleep.

I truly do not remember how I stumbled across counting you to sleep - when pleading, and bottles and binkies didn't work - and singing of lullabies only enraged you further, but I truly believe it was the hand of God. One of those days or nights when you were keeping your exhausted self awake by rubber banding around the room or bed, I tucked you (still screaming) into my arms, and something told me - try counting. I don't remember if in that moment I had specifically uttered a prayer, or if this inspiration came as a result of my constant evening pleading prayers that I might become a better mother. Regardless, it was a tender mercy of the Lord. No friend told me how to do it, I'd never read it in a book or article, or heard of it discussed as a strategy - but He who knows the sparrows also knows you, my son, and knew what would calm your heart and ease your spirit.

And so we count. Sometimes I remember to say sheep in the middle of the numbers - and sometimes not. Sometimes it takes 10 - sometimes 30, sometimes 30 x 5...but you are always, magically, calmed. My funny little man. I love you - screaming, irrational, and sweet and sleepy.