So Much Love

I once dated a guy who told me "I feel on top of the world when you fall asleep in my arms."  This was, of course, in fact to my falling asleep while we were watching something incredibly boring on TV.  I remember reading that line in a note and thinking "You feel special that I found your interest so dull that I fell asleep?  Creep."

YEARS later, I have a much different outlook on those words.

Tonight was one of those exhausting nights.  The ones where NOTHING at bed time goes right, no matter how much you planned for it.



Waking them  up from an evening cat nap in time so they won't be wide awake at bedtime, bottles in all the right time slots, quiet time effective half an hour before bedtime with my awesome Ryan Stewart radio station on Pandora playing in the background... (side note, for those of you who use Pandora and need a stellar unwind music only station, or some calming music for the little ones, check it out.  I LOVE him.)  Anyway, back to the point.  I planned EVERYTHING to a T.  What did I leave out in my planning?  The county fair going on around the corner of course.  And tonight?  Well, tonight was truck pull night.  Who can have a county fair without a truck pull, right?

8pm rolls around and I crawl into bed with my daughter, a warm bottle, and a pacifier ready for, what I anticipated, to be an easy bedtime after the long day at the outlet mall.  She, however, had many other things in mind, none of which had to do with bedtime.  And any time she would start to calm down and even seem like sleep might stop evading her, some moron truck in the distance would start his portion of the pissing contest down at the track.  And so she would wind back up and start rolling around in her protest for sleep.  I tried everything, closing the window, turning up the sound machine, humming, cuddling, putting her in our bed, more bottle, less bottle, blanket, no blanket, fan, no fan... EVERYTHING.  Nothing worked.  So, my husband thought he might give it a try when I, in complete defeat, brought her back out to the living room to play with toys in an attempt to tire her out.  He returned to the living room shortly after throwing his hands up in surrender.

She rolled around, walked the length of the couch, tried to climb anything in sight, and come 9 pm she and I made the walk of shame back to the bedroom to try again.  This time, at least, was successful, after several thoughts about wishing I had a handgun or shotgun to go blow holes in the tires of these idiots who have nothing better to do with their money in this economy.  Again, beside the point.

I went out to the couch and sat down, and opted to give myself about 20 minutes to unwind before even considering bed.  When Hubby finally decided it was bedtime, I trailed along, laptop in hand, because I knew it just wasn't happening for me yet.  I had some blog-y stuff on reserve I could type up, and figured I'd give that a go until I got sleepy.  Not 10 minutes after opening my computer Lyla lets out a cry next to me.

We're not talking the "I haven't heard myself talk in a while so I'm going to make a peep in my sleep to make sure I'm still alive and then look like I never made a noise when the adults look at me," cry. We're talking the "Yea, something just ran through my dreams that threatened everything good and magical I'm supposed to know right now and my world is about ready to melt down," cry.  In one quick motion the laptop went down and was closed and I swooped my daughter up in my arms, wrapped the quilt that her grammy made around her and cuddled her like no tomorrow.  A trick that normally works wonders...and she wasn't having it.  She wasn't awake, but was crying for dear life.  The terrifying, heart breaking cry that a mom would give her left arm for her child to never have to make.  I tried bottles, burping, pacifier, cuddling, humming... the entire repertoire and repeated.  When nothing worked I learned her back in my arms, her butt in my lap and her feet dangling off my legs.  I snuggled her head to my heart and held on for all the money in the world.  And then it stopped.  Her body went limp, her little lips parted and a sigh came out.  Her face unscrunched, her hand delicately found its way on top of mine, and she snuggled in and proceeded to look so peaceful sleeping that I wished I was in a rocking chair so I could just hold her that way all night.

And then I cried.  A cry I haven't had since 2 weeks after we brought her home and I accidentally tapped her head with my water bottle.  Something that didn't even phase her, yet induced the first cry since I'd had her.  And as I sat on my bed with my feet in hers, holding her in my lap...I was consumed with that feeling of love all over again.  The feeling that reminds us that the 9 months of interrupted sleep, being constantly needed, and having someone who can't communicate a single need so demanding is, in fact, worth it.  Instead of putting her back in her bed immediately, I held on a few minutes longer, snuggled a little harder, and cherished the moments that there won't be nearly enough of when I look back on these days.

Sometimes G_d needs to give us a little reminder of the good things in the world.  And while his method for doing so may stretch my patience to its limits sometimes.  I could only imagine how much more it would be stretched without those reminders.

Don't be so quick to let your kids become independent of you.  Or, better yet, so quick to become independent of your kids.  You only get these early days once with each child.  The dishes can wait until tomorrow, the blog post can wait (as you might be getting something better if you let yourself), the world can wait.  Indulge in your children's snuggles and innocence when it's impossible to spoil them with it.  And, truth be...if your child is spoiled because you smother them with your affections rather than cut the strings early... there are worse ways you could be spoiling them.

Hope you all have a good night, and spend some extra time snuggling this coming week!