Nostalgia

Last night, I sat in the rocking chair in my son’s darkened bedroom, waiting for him to finally shut his eyes and go to sleep.

He refused and climbed out of bed. “I want to sit in your wap.”

Up he climbed into the chair with me, but I warned him that he couldn’t stay long.

Then we went into our newest ritual, a trip down memory lane.

This was a repeat of an episode a couple of weeks ago, when, as he did last night, he didn’t want to sleep, and I enjoyed the snuggle so much. As I rocked the chair, I told him that I used to hold him in that very chair when he was a baby, I nursed him and I sang him to sleep.

“What did you sing?”

I told him of a couple of lullabies that I sang, “Hush Little Baby” and “Sur le pont d’Avignon.” We did this every night until I was ready to wean him, and to ease the transition, I stopped singing the songs.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when he said, “Mommy, sing dem.”
So I sang both the lullabies and he sat curled in my lap.

Last night, we did the whole thing again. (Actually, we've done this about 3 or 4 times over the last couple of weeks.)

I don’t know what he remembers of his babyhood, but I guess he misses the comforts of nursing. And maybe, he needed some of that, even if it was just all the reminders of how it used to be – snuggling with Mommy and hearing her sing.