I’ve never been big into sports. I kind of know the general goal of most sports and some of the rules, but I’ve never had favorite teams nor been particularly invested in the outcome of games. Therefore the whole idea of superstitions and not washing particular clothing items because your team finally won when you were wearing those striped socks that you had had on for three days has always seemed ridiculous to me. I think maybe I had a lucky rabbit’s foot in seventh grade, but I’m pretty sure I left it somewhere after a day or two and never missed it. I think finding a four-leaf clover is pretty cool, but only because they’re so rare, not because I think they’re going to change my life. All in all, I’m a highly rational person.

So it is with some surprise that I find myself engaging in superstitious behavior now that I have a small child. In my rational mind, if I put in a certain amount of time feeding, rocking, singing to, and generally soothing my son prior to his nap this should result in a certain amount of sleep (at least as long as the soothing time, and probably longer most days). Not so. Apparently, my son’s seven-week-old brain is not yet functioning on this rational level and so sleep seems to come willy-nilly. Most days it is twenty minutes here thirty minutes there. One afternoon I got a miraculous 3 hours out of him, but you never can tell. However, after a certain number of days in which the sleep count is particularly low and the fussing amount is particularly high, I begin to find myself engaging in highly irrational behavior. I find myself thinking back to the last good, long nap he had and trying to replicate those conditions exactly. What time of day was it? What was he wearing? Where was he sleeping? What did I do before I put him down? What ambient noises were there? In my foggy, lack of sleep state, I come to believe (fervently) that if I could just get those conditions exactly the same I could get him to sleep.

And … sometimes it works. But I’m starting to think that it works just frequently enough to keep me doing these ridiculous things. Is it possible that motherhood is slowly chipping away at my rationality? Will I soon find myself wearing particular socks in hopes that my $2 scratch-off lotto ticket will once again yield $20? I would do a web-search to learn more, but I’m pretty sure I peeked my head into the nursery about this time last time …