The Yin and The Yang

On one hand, babies seem to thrive on chaos. Jasper upturns baskets full of toys with glee, dumps drawers joyfully and flings my neatly folded laundry into crumpled piled behind him with squeels of happiness. Luckily, I love to organize. (It calms my mind, which is something I need these days.) I love neatly stacking things, putting stray objects into containers, straightening book spines and stuffed toys. So as you can imagine, it all works out.

On the other hand, babies thrive on normalcy, routine (to a point), and most of all, repetition. I am not a routine type of person, generally. This comes in handy in a few areas of our life, as I feed Jazz when he acts hungry, not based on a clock, and put him down for naps when he acts tired, not based on any predetermined time. I just follow his lead, watch for his cues and act accordingly, and it feels right. We do have our routines, though. Bedtime starts at 7:30, with solids (in which his interest waxes and wanes) then bath, lotion, jammies, bottle, book, bed. I try to keep this pretty rigid, in the hopes that his overnight sleeping will improve. It has, slightly. He's still up 4 or so times at night, crying out, reaching for me. (still better than hourly) I'm exhausted, and some days it's hard to deal with. But I remind myself that it won't be like this forever. Some day he won't need me like this anymore, and I know I will feel a pang of sadness, against all logic and understanding, remembering the time when I was the one thing he needed. Snuggling him and feeling him breathe next to me, kissing his head while he slumbers, I try to remind myself of this fact. While I will feel relief once he sleeps through the night, relief in finally being rested, finally getting to sleep next to my husband, I know I will miss being needed this way.

I guess the conclusion I'm coming to in that Jasper and I balance each other out pretty well. And one of the very few things I know in this world is that balance brings harmony, and harmony brings happiness. And of all of the things in my life right now that are precariously unbalanced, maddeningly unharmonious, this, Jasper and I, we are a much needed, neat little yin yang.