Putting in the Time

Dear Jack,

You are now pretty much over the double ear infection that kept you (and at least one of your parents) home all week long. You were mostly a real trooper about the whole thing. You played happily all day long, ate just fine, and took your naps without any real trouble. But at night, you really weren't able to get to sleep and stay asleep like you needed to and so you and I had a lot of late nights this past week.

I will freely admit that being up and down with you all night long almost every night this week was difficult. In fact, it got more and more difficult as the week wore on because around Tuesday, I came down sick myself.

Because it was such a long week, I'm not sure which night it was that I was rocking you and you were screaming and I knew you were tired and just couldn't get to sleep and as I was rocking back and forth, wishing desperately that I could be asleep, that it came to me.

The rocker. The one that I was rocking you in. I had bought it when I was pregnant with your sister. It was around two or three hundred dollars because it's something of an antique. I didn't care about that. I only cared about having a nice wooden rocker. The trend these days is towards those cloth covered glider rockers, and honestly, they work better and are more comfortable. But they don't store well in garages or attics, and they don't last more than a few years, and I wanted a rocker I could point to and say, "That's the rocker I rocked my babies in." So I used some of the money that Aunt Mary Lou left for me to buy just the right wooden rocker, even if that meant paying more than I should have.

So I had the rocker. The one that I could point to and say, "That's the rocker I rocked my babies in." Only, your sister didn't much like to be rocked. So it was really just "the rocker I bought when I was pregnant." And then there we were, two in the morning, you were screaming, and I was bleary-eyed, and I thought to myself, "I'm putting in the time." The time rocking you that would allow me to point to that piece of wooden furniture and say, "That's the rocker I used to rock Jack in when he was sick." It wasn't fun and it wasn't easy, but it's the trial of it all that makes the statement have so much power.

Somehow, that made it all better. And now that the week is over and your ear infection is being treated with antibiotics and you are all better, I really am glad that I put in the time.

Love,
Mom