I forgot how much you sit with a baby.  How often there’s really nothing you can do besides…sit, and hold a baby.  After about two months at home with a newborn, I found myself curled up in “my spot” on the sofa (again), holding a nursing baby (again).  This third little one is not too keen on naps; even then, she never seemed to sleep for very long.  For a few weeks, her late-afternoon nap ritual involved me nursing her to sleep and then holding her.  Transferring her to a crib guaranteed waking her up; holding her not only guaranteed sleep but, potentially, a real nap instead of the cat-naps she enjoyed so much.

So there I sat, holding a sleeping baby.  Just….sitting.  And holding a baby.  And in danced my older daughter, who came to a halt in front of me.

“Is the baby asleep?” she whispered.

Yes, I whispered back.

“And you’re just sitting there?” she whispered.

Yes, I whispered back.

She cocked her head to one side, surveying the scene.  I bit my tongue to hold back the dozens of excuses that were wanting to spill out of me; all the reasons I wasn’t doing all the things I should be doing besides sitting and holding a baby.

She straightened up tall.  “You’re a good mom,” she announced, and pranced back out of the room.

The floors that needed to be swept, the rugs to be vacuumed, the laundry to be put away, the dishes to be done, the schoolwork to be prepped, the papers to be graded…the list, in my head, was never-ending.  I suppose, though, that those things would be the definition of a “good housekeeper,” or a “good teacher.”  I didn’t have the time or the energy to be any of those things.  For those few months, being a mom was pretty much all I could do.

I’m thrilled she thought I was a good one.