Over the last eight weeks my LO and I have been doing this intricate dance. A dance I like to call The Dance of Needs. It’s a dance that all mothers learn to do with their babies. We rehearse this dance in our heads before our babies arrive…we imagine how great it’s going to be when the baby is born, nursing will be a breeze, they will sleep through the night, they won’t ever scream blood hell, they won’t impede that much on our lives. Our perception is that our dance will be perfect and full of bliss. Unfortunately, once the baby arrives reality hits and we realize that we have learned the wrong dance. Some babies are high needs dancers, some babies are easy dancers some babies are always changing up the steps. Our babies have a dance all of their own!
I didn’t really get a chance to learn my own dance before my LO arrived, so I have been dancing the steps my previous partner taught me. It was a long time ago and though I remember some of the steps I have forgotten plenty. In true baby fashion, my LO is teaching me to dance her steps. Sometimes our dance is slow, sometimes it fast, sometimes we hit all the right steps and its magnificent.
Tonight, as I was trying to finish up this post my LO and I had to do the dance of cranky baby since it was visitation day. I finally got her calmed down after doing about 15 minutes of the Mommy sway..I must have gotten the steps right because she drifted off to slumberland!
18 years ago I started on the this amazing journey...