Stuck beneath a sleeping baby. Perhaps one of the best possible places to be. A place that can be so amazingly comfortable no matter the actual physical surroundings. People say I shouldn't still be here at night; that at almost a year old she should be going into her bed awake and quietly laying down to sleep without bothering me again until morning. But they say that it's ok to reach that point by putting her down and just letting her cry until she learns that I'm not going to be "manipulated" by an infant not wanting to be alone in the great big dark. I say rubbish. (Ok, that's actually a cleaned up version of my knee jerk response).
The quiet moments right on the edge of sleep, the moments where I watch her eyelids flutter and feel her breathing slowly deepen and slow, these are the wonderful moments that make my heart swell and erase all the bad of the day. How many women have had these precious moments stolen from them by so-called experts who tell mothers that the only right way to put baby to sleep is to leave them awake in their beds and that crying is a normal stage? Not here, not for us. Here sleep comes peacefully and gently.
At some point she will sleep on her own. At some point, she will fall asleep without nursing (she's already hit that point for naps), and she won't need rocked. She won't go to college (or even grade school) still needing to come to my bed rather than staying in hers until morning. Someday. But not this day. And that's okay. The human infant knows they're not meant to be left alone in the dark, even if we've spent decades telling parents it's better that way.