What is patience?

What is patience?

Before I had a child I'd been taught that raising a child means having patience. Thank you, my child, for teaching ba what patience is.

A patient person is someone who knows clearly what they want and will achieve it, but doesn't know when or how. They'll wait however long it takes and do everything to get there.

I set the goal of getting the baby to sleep, and sleep early, because I know she needs to sleep early. Every action of mine will aim at getting her to sleep. Every action of hers will be evaluated on whether it leads to sleep or not. Every second ticking away gets further from the early-sleep goal.

She yawns — the previous 100 times, after the yawn she slept. This time she doesn't sleep.

She itches — scratch her good and she'll sleep. Fifteen minutes of scratching, still not asleep.

She's hot — fan her cool and she'll sleep. She doesn't sleep.

She lacks a pillow — hand her every pillow and stuffed animal to hold. She doesn't sleep.

She cries — who knows why she cries. Pick her up and the crying stops. She still doesn't sleep.

She's hungry — feed her more until full. She still doesn't sleep.

She's restless — put her in the hammock and she'll sleep, but má doesn't want to build the habit of needing the hammock. She sleeps.

Maybe she slept because of this, or thanks to that. Maybe fast, maybe slow. Usually slow, as if to test ba má's patience. For me, I only know she will sleep. Somehow, at some point. In the end, what baby doesn't sleep? Even the one who stays up until 5 AM having milk, getting changed, watching movies, listening to music eventually sleeps.

Say what you will, every night she falls asleep successfully, ba and má feel fulfilled.