I've called this blog MorMor's Journal, because eventually I thought I would write about my grandkids in here. Now we've changed what our grandchildren will call us: we liked the usual Norwegian names for Grandma & Grandpa: Bestemor & Bestefar, but the blog name needn't change. MorMor just means Mother's mother, and that is what I am to my grandchildren, whatever they choose to call me when they start to speak.
But tonight my grandson is the topic of this blog. You see, tonight we have him for night for the first time. He is not quite nine months old, and is not talking yet, but he is very smart. He knows that I can't listen to him cry for long, and he knows that Bestemor will sing him to sleep if he's persistant enough.
Having the grandbabies for night is somewhat intimidating... I sleep well. Very well. If my kids are here with their children, and they tell me in the morning that their babies cried half the night, it is news to me. I don't hear it. But we did okay when our granddaughter spent the night. When I know that I'm in charge, I sleep lightly. Just so I can hear her.
Well, tonight as I rocked our grandson, I had to smile. He knows about sleeping lightly. He may have two or three hour naps at home, but here he is so afraid he'll miss anything, that he has half-hour naps. It was time to put him to sleep for the night, and yes, I was walking him and singing. If I even shifted him in my arms, his eyes opened immediately. He held onto my shirt with his tiny fist, so he'd feel it if I put him down. I sang all the regular favorites, and he still was drifting in and out of sleep.
So I tried a few tricks of my own. I just sang the last line of the song over and over, hoping that would get him into a deeper sleep. When his eyelids finally weren't fluttering open regularly, I put him down in the playpen, continuing to sing the same line over and over. It seemed to work. He's asleep. For now...
No comments:
Post a Comment