Babies Don't Keep

I was thinking today, while rocking my baby, of how many hours I have spent sitting in my glider. I'll look over at it one day, in a corner, in a guest room somewhere, and remember all the days and nights I spent slowly rocking and humming. And how many hours my mom spent in her wooden rocking chair, and Neal's mom in her old upholstered one with the creak in it. Neal and I both came from families who rocked us as babies, and I am so grateful for that. We both learned the importance of the peaceful routine of a rocking chair and the soothing movement that can calm a fussy baby.
I have spent many quiet, contemplative moments with a baby on my shoulder, their cheek squished up against their lips, their pure, sugar-sweet breath on my neck. My glider is a happy place, where I rocked Audrey through her colicky hours, sang Wiggles songs to Parker while he drank his bottle, and now where I've nursed Miles by the window, while he stares, mesmerized by the light coming through the blinds. In the middle of these moments, sometimes, I pray that I'll always remember the feeling of having a young baby. I know I'm going to miss it, and if Miles is my last one, I'm going to miss it soon. Can you tell I've already started a sort of grieving process?
I've never been a fan of the old "teach your infant to cry himself to sleep" idea. (I know, I'm now incurring the wrath of schedule-minded mommies everywhere; comment away!) A little fussing now and then won't hurt, but making a 6-week-old baby cry for an hour? No, sir, not my babies. I worry that if I followed that method, I'd one day regret all those moments when my baby was crying and I was doing something unimportant, just trying to "train" them. And why would I want to train my baby to not need me? If my baby can't come to me for comfort when he's six weeks old, who will he go to when he's six years old? Or sixteen? His pacifier?
All that's not worth it to me. A few months of me sleeping 8 hours for all that screaming and torture? My babies need me. I'm their mom. I can lose some sleep for their comfort. I don't think I'll ever look back and think that I held them too much. My mom always says, "You have the rest of your life to do all of that (sleep, go to the temple, clean your house). Don't feel guilty, just hold your baby."
When I was younger, the nursery in my house was upstairs and decorated in yellow and white gingham. My mom had stitched a verse of the poem by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton, Song for a Fifth Child and it hung above the rocker. While I was on bedrest for ten weeks with Audrey, Neal's mom picked up a cross-stitch project for me to keep my hands (and mind) busy. It was the same verse, and I finished it just in time for Audrey to come. Neal's mom framed it for me and it hung in Audrey's room.

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peek-a-boo).
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo,
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.