Find all of my 31 Moments of Motherhood posts here.
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[Lights come up on a toddler bed with a woman laying awkwardly with her feet hanging over the edge. She unfolds herself uncomfortably and sits up on the edge of the bed.]
Me
[Groaning] “I have spent the last several months jamming myself into this toddler bed with my youngest daughter, snuggling before bedtime, taking her back to bed when she wakes up in the middle of the night, and ending up with pins and needles in my feet and a crick in my neck for my efforts.”
[Stands up and limps toward the front of the stage, stomping out the “pins and needles”.]
Me
“I keep telling myself that I need to get tough…let her cry it out…work through this middle of the night ‘stuff’, but honestly, I just can’t bring myself to do it. She’s the last of our kids that I can still lift with one arm. She is the last of our kids that still needs her mommy to help her fall asleep. She is the last of our kids that fits in a toddler bed.”
“I didn’t have any problem when she was done nursing or even when she was done potty training, but the feeling of her little hand in mine while she drifts off to sleep? I am not ready to give it up, even as much as I yawn and complain about my sleep deprived state and my frustrations with her sleeping habits.”
[Sits back down on the toddler bed]
Me
“My kids still need me…they will always need me. But the challenges of broken relationships and unruly emotions unleashed in the harsh sunlight seem so much weightier when I compare them to meeting the primal needs of warmth and comfort in the soft light of the pink flower night lights hanging on the bedroom wall.”
“So I keep rolling out of bed, stumbling to my daughter’s side when she cries, and wedging myself under her small square of a quilt. I take her hand, whisper that it is going to be okay, and wait quietly while she drifts off to sleep, knowing that she is not alone.”
“That is what I do, for this wisp of a girl who still needs her mom at night.”
[Lights down as she lays back down on the toddler bed.]
