Learned behavior

In a moment of ingenuity (that, or creative desperation), my parents affixed springs to the feet of two legs on my crib.  “We would have tried anything,” my mom explained after she revealed this for the first time, half-pleading for forgiveness from my astounded face.

Twenty-four years later, I know how I learned to rock myself to sleep just by jostling one knee until the repetitive motion carries the rest of my body along on a gentle sway.

Convenient, isn’t it, that childhood amnesia effect?  I wonder what else they’ve been keeping from me.

And I wonder where I could find springs large enough for the feet on my full-sized grown-up bed.