Cured at last!

This evening I was standing in line at the pharmacy when I realized something amazing -- I wasn't bobbing the item in my left hand up and down unconsciously.

For the first several months of Kai's life, he spent a lot of time swaddled in his blanket, nestled in the crook of my arm. I would try to sooth him when he was crying by shushing him or singing to him, and always gently bobbed him up and down or rocked him side to side.

I spent so many hours a day doing this that it became an unconscious behavior. I caught myself at a party rocking my plate of hors d'oeuvres. I've spilled drinks. I've gently bobbed watermelons to sleep in the checkout line. I've soothed books at the bookstore. I've rocked my Chihuahua to sleep in my arm. I have, to my embarassment, been caught doing this at work too with various objects in the lab.

Usually I catch myself doing this when I'm in line. It's always when I'm stuck doing something monotonous, where my mind wanders into nothingness. Some dreamless-daydream state brought on by months of unending tiredness.


But tonight was different. It was weird. I distinctly thought that something was wrong -- usually the feeling I have when I first become aware that my arm is moving, but this time it wasn't!

Cured at last!

8 days old

9 months old