The mommy dance

As I write this, I am currently entwined in "the mommy dance."

The dance is something I do with my son every night in order to get him down to sleep. A normal night typically goes like this:

Somewhere around 6:45pm-7pm Henry starts to fuss signaling his day is done and he is ready for bed. As he gives us his "tired cry" we frantically prepare his end-of-the-day bottle. (Henry is exclusively breastfed but I do pump one bottle's worth of milk for him a day so that his dad can feed him from time to time.)

Around 7:15 or 7:30, in the midst of his bottle Henry dozes off, and thus the dance begins. Carefully, whomever is feeding him quietly attempts to transfer his to his crib. If he settles into his crib without thrashing, the dance has gone about as smoothly as possible. However, normally we need to bring in old faithful: the pacifier. I know I've gone on about the pacifier previously but it really is amazing to see how the simple act of giving him the pacifier transforms his body to Jell-O and his eyes slam shut.

My only complaint is that Henry has learned the fine art of pacifier slingshot. Somehow, with just the muscles of his mouth he can sling his pacifier clear across his crib and then, of course, immediately regret it. The dance becomes me having to pace back and forth from here at my computer, to his room to reinsert his precious Nuk. From the sounds on the baby monitor I have sitting next to me I can outline the progression of his annoyance - first he'll start to grunt (and usually kick his legs up simultaneously), then the whining begins and ultimately he will cry for his precious oral fixation. I enter the room quietly give him what he seeks and leave quickly.

The dance is performed at least two or three times before he ultimately succumbs and drifts off to sleep. Usually at that point the pacifier will fall out of his mouth, his only dance prop, and I pray to God the simple act of it isn't enough to wake him so to start us dancing from the very beginning.