A Visit and some Buddhist Musings

My friend Darcey came to visit me today. She is somebody I know from the CUUPS group at church and is also the minister that married us! And she officially rules because she is the only person who brought me something when she brought the baby a gift – a nice bath collection. It was great to have a visitor, especially one who has raised 2 boys. We had an interesting talk about the whole family bed concept. All the “experts” seem to be supporting it these days, including Dr. Sears, who says it builds greater trust and better sleep habits in later years. But it seems to me that a balanced approach might be the best way. Both of Darcey’s boys continued to need her help to fall asleep until they were about 10 years old after having slept with her for an extended period in the beginning. It is really too early for me to be worrying about it regarding Orion, so I guess I will just play it by ear for now.

Back to the past:

There is something that happened when Orion was exactly 13 days old that I want to be sure to remember. A lady named Dee had been there during the day. She was another reference from Octavia and I really liked her, but she wasn’t available full time. One of the things she showed me was the best way to hold a newborn and when she left that day I sat in the rocking chair with Orion like that for awhile.

As my mind drifted about I had two separate but related thoughts. I was already sleepy and my arms started to get tired and I couldn’t help but starting to wonder about how many hours I would eventually spend in that rocker. I decided that was not a very good way to look at it, so I changed my focus and started to think about being in the moment. It came to me that my son is 13 days old and will never be that age again. From that perspective, just sitting and rocking him became a magickal thing and I thought that no matter how much he cries or fusses in the future I will be able to recenter this way.

Being in that focus of the moment reminded me of an article I had read recently in The World magazine. There has been a very Buddhist slant to much of the writing there in recent years. The author was talking about the concept of mindfulness and gave the example of doing dishes. The proper mindset is not to do the dishes in order to make them clean, but do the dishes just to do the dishes. It occurred to me that rocking the baby was a perfect parallel. Instead of rocking Orion in order to get him to sleep, I should be rocking him just to rock him.

These concepts are so simple, but the simple things in life are often the most profound.