After our week in the Adirondacks, Norah had a terrible time sleeping. She had a hard time while we were on vacation–a combination of the big, dark, unfamiliar room; and the thunderstorm we had one night early in the week, loud and close, with the lighting flashing bright off the lake just outside our room; and the lengths we went to to get her to sleep that week, lying on the floor by her pack-n-play till she fell asleep or even crawling into bed with her for naps. At any rate, when we got back home, our good little sleeper, the girl who’d play happily till she fell asleep and then make nary a peep till 8 the next morning, had turned into a desperate, screaming little beastie. A few nights, she was up every couple of hours, needing to be held, waking up every time we tried to put her down. So, finally, I talked to Allison, went to Borders and bought the Sleep Lady book, the one Al has highlighted and underlined and memorized, and tried the Sleep Lady Shuffle. This meant staying with Norah until she fell asleep, sitting in the chair for the first few nights, then in the doorway, then just outside the door. And she screamed and she screamed, true, all-out temper tantrums, but I found that it didn’t tie my stomach up in knots, the way I usually get when she’s having trouble sleeping. I wasn’t downstairs, listening on the monitor, thinking of my little girl alone and afraid, or maybe with her foot caught between the crib rails, and her mommy and daddy just not coming to her no matter how hard she cried. And I wasn’t sitting and holding her, while she snuggles up and falls asleep in my arms and I’m thinking, “This is lovely, but how am I ever going to get her back in the crib, and how will this ever get better?’ Nope. I was there for her, not making her go through this tough thing all by herself, not leaving her alone with her fear, but also not doing it for her. I’ll walk with you through this, I was saying, but I know you can do it. It just felt right to me, and eventually it worked–after 8 nights of sitting with her, progressively farther and farther from the crib, she was back to going to sleep just fine on her own. Alleluia amen.

And a couple of nights ago, Norah was playing in the living room, snuggling her doll and her doggie into the big brown leather chair. And we heard her talking to them, saying, “Right here. With you. Doorway. Listening.” And I knew right then that I had done right by my child. I had given her just what she needed.