I have a stack of books next to me. Two different sleep training methods and one collection of Mary Oliver poems. The two sleep training books are out because it’s time to sleep train Bay.

There are as many approaches to sleep training as there are opinions about it. To be fair, we’ve already tried to sleep train the Bay Leaf, but it was traumatic. She cried, and choke-cried, and banshee screamed for six hours even with our many checks and shushes and holds. And that was using the gentlest method I found among our archives… So, we’ve been dragging our feet picking it back up again.

It didn’t help having a global pandemic sweep through. Suddenly things felt more fragile, more temporary. I wanted to give my children everything—love, attention, closeness, security, physical availability. The instinctual reaction to the unknown is to pull inward, grab those closest to me, and refuse to let go until the danger has passed.

The danger has not passed. The danger may not pass for months. It’s here and it’s dictating our current existence. So, we’ve continued to press our children close.

But, there’s something that scratches at the back of my mind. On mornings where I feel thin, or evenings where I feel brittle, the scratch turns its nagging drags into long, deep cuts. This painful reminder is for physical space. With everything going on in the world, the children and I are spending most of our days in the house or on the patio. We are all smooshed together while the pandemic plays out and most days it’s a relief. Having us all be together and safe and healthy and cared for, fills me with profound gratitude.

Of course, I worry about Ben, out in the world, possibly exposed to the virus. But, we know he’s out there doing what he needs to do to support our family in this era of crippled restaurants. He’s doing everything he can to keep the businesses going and keep us as financially stable as we can be.

When he’s home, the Cub and him are riding bikes together, playing on the ramps he built, generally soaking in one another’s company. The Bay Leaf spends time with her dad but eventually is only mollified by mom.

She is very attached to me.

I mean that in an emotional and physical way.

She is attached to me unlike the Cub ever was. This is new territory.

Particularly at night, she cannot abide Ben. It can only be me. She doesn’t transfer, she only wants the warm comfort of mom curled around her pudgy little body. Protecting her little heart and soft skin. And I love her babyness, her sweet puffs of breath, her search for my breast and my warmth. I love having her with me because I know this is the end of our babies. And I was never needed in this way with the Cub. It makes me feel special and necessary.

But the scratch-scratch of self-preservation continues. I need to have some physical autonomy for extended sanity in a world that is keeping us all home and smooshed. We need to sleep train Bay so that Ben and I can spend time with each other in the evenings. We need to sleep train Bay so I can write. If we can get her sleeping at night, naps might be longer and a writing practice can be carved out for more than twenty minutes at a time.

Speaking of twenty minutes, we’re at minute thirty-two and so you can see I’ve got a tag-a-long.

So, I’ll look at these books, we’ll try again. It’ll be hard and awful, but it’ll be necessary for all of us. I’m not looking forward to it, but I know it’s the best thing we can do for her, for me, for all of us.

Oh, and I included the Mary Oliver because sleep training is the fucking worst and she is the fucking best, so… a little poetry helps the pill go down.

Sending love from on top of the hill,