My son is addicted to his mother. He rarely leaves her side and refuses to go to sleep without her. Nursing is his favorite past time and that ensures that his favorite past time doesn’t involve me. I’m okay with this. It’s simply a fact of life. It’s okay. I’m actually quite proud that he loves his mother so much. I’m hoping it continues throughout his life (as I’m writing this he’s happily crawling to Mom with a big grin on his little face). Soon he’ll be walking to her with a big grin.
Just because I love that my son loves his mother so much it sometimes pains me to know that I’m not the one he wants. When he wakes up in the middle of the night he’ll touch my chin, feel facial hair, and roll the other way to find his mother. I’m the wrong person to take care of him and he knows it. The comfort he finds nursing is also the comfort that lulls him to sleep. As such, he rarely falls asleep in my arms. This is why I was so pleased this past week when we fell asleep together.
Mom was already asleep on the couch and needed her rest during a busy week of school in the final days of the semester. In order to grant her some much needed rest my son and I went back into his room and sat in our comfy rocking chair. We were both tired too… but neither of us wanted to admit it. When we plopped ourselves into the chair my son rested his head on my stomach and looked up at me with an “are we gonna do something” look. We stared at each other for a while but we must have fallen asleep. When I woke up later he was still in the same position but his eyes were closed. Occasionally a smile crossed his lips. Dad was becoming comforting… and he couldn’t be happier.