Flashback (What a feeling!)

Punk was having a heck of a time settling down for nap this afternoon. It's probably because of the low-key morning we had due to the heat, the humidity, and the fact that I needed to bring my car in for scheduled maintenance. Not enough exercise and all that. So anyway, she was an absolute toddler wreck at lunch time (deliberately being a rascal) and did not fall asleep at naptime, and in fact carried on for about an hour and 15 minutes playing, knocking around, talking, whatever. I went in once with the Voice of Doom but all that bought me was 20 minutes of quiet before the carrying on resumed.

At about 1:20 I tried a different tactic, went in there, scooped her up with me in the rocking chair, wrapped her up in a blanket, and rocked. Rocked like we haven't rocked in about 7 months. She tried to play at first, but I let her know that the rocking chair was for sleeping with Mama and if she wasn't sleeping, she was going back in the crib alone. And we rocked, in the A/C (glorious!).

It was such a blast from the past, rocking with my baby girl, looking through a sliver of open eye to see her start blinking, then more blinking, then the long blinks, and then out like a light. For a few moments I got to hold her there, like a baby instead of an ornery little girl, stroking her hand and kissing the top of her head.

Sometimes every kid needs a little Mama.