Priceless
Audrey didn’t want to go to sleep tonight…what almost-4-month-old would…I mean, after all, this world is quite the exciting place to a relatively new passenger on this fast moving bus of life! As I watched my daughter struggle with Audrey, I did the honorable thing and said “give her to me”, and I immediately started that gentle and nurturing motion that can only come from a grandfather holding his granddaughter. As I felt her settle down, I quietly meandered to my office and sat down on my ergonomically correct and rocking chair, and I slowly rocked her with the only light visible in the room being the screen saver on my computer. Within minutes, she was sound asleep, and that sense of relief came over everyone in the house.
Most grandfather’s realize how rare and very unusual it is for a grandfather to put a granddaughter to sleep. That’s the magical domain of a grandmother, and most grandfathers don’t even give it a try. But tonight for some reason was different. I wanted to engage. I wanted to embrace a challenge. I wanted to enter a twilight zone of sorts involving the gentle and nurturing embrace of an infant child to get that child to prefer sleep over the excitement of this brave new world that they’ve entered. AND I DID IT! Not only did I do it, but she stayed asleep even while visiting her grandmother watching the hockey game and then finally being carried up to bed. Of course, her grandmother did that…that’s certainly not the domain of a grandfather.
Being able to do something this unusual is priceless! There is a sense of accomplishment here that can’t be effectively explained, but trust me when I say that I’m smiling from the simple act of getting a nearly 4 month old to sleep when others struggled so mightily to accomplish that goal!
PS. Some may say that putting folks to sleep shouldn’t be something that surprises me. I’d prefer to think that it was something really, really special!