Tender

Look at this beautiful child.

10-20-11

FYI: I think Valette knows that she is a firstborn. She does not have time to snuggle with us. The closest she comes is burying her face in my shoulder when she decides to be shy to the person talking to her.

Okay, story time:

When Valette was tiny and still feeding in the night I got lazy and started going to get her and bringing her back to our bed to nurse, rather than doing it in the rocking chair and then putting her down in her bed.

She would nurse and fall back to sleep very easily, and Eric liked to be able to snuggle her anyway.  Eventually she grew too big for this. When she was done eating, she would alternate between dozing and kicking me the rest of the night.  I was not getting good sleep anymore. I started only bringing her to our bed in the morning after Eric had already gotten up for work (he gets out of bed by 5:15, so this wasn't hard) because if she was on his side of the bed where she couldn't touch me she went back to sleep just fine.

Then she got to the point that she sleeps through the night. Yay! Now she wakes up most mornings between 8 and 8:30 and then we both get up for the day.  But on the weekends when Eric is home, he  still wants to snuggle so when she cries he will get up and bring her to our bed. She is fine with this, but she has no interest in sleeping.  She smiles at us and plays and climbs all over me.  She slaps my face and pulls my hair and puts all her weight on my wind pipe. (How she ALWAYS manages to find just the right spot to cut off my air supply, I do not know.) All the while she completely ignores Eric who wants her loves so desperately and tries to get her to crawl on his face instead. Poor husband.

She has not been feeling too great the last few weeks. We have had a few out of character nights and mornings. Today was one such morning. Eric was getting ready for work, so it might have been 5:30, and she woke up crying and coughing.  He picked her up and gave her loves and then brought her to me in bed. She laid with me and I held her hand (to prevent face-hitting) and she squirmed a little, but not too much, she was honestly still tired.  Eric made her a bottle and she gladly drank the whole thing. Valette crawled around the bed a little bit and then she started to get relaxed again.  She would lay on her tummy and rest, then realize she was falling asleep and move again. She did this at least 8 times and eventually brought herself to me. She laid belly-down across my neck with my chin in the gap between her ear and shoulder which was not comfy for me at all. Thankfully it wasn't good enough for her either.  She wiggled more until she ended up with her head resting just below my shoulder and the rest of her out from me.  I pulled the blanket up over her and pet her head and just enjoyed the snuggle time.

She slept like that for almost an hour. It was tender. I texted Eric and he was so jealous. See? Poor husband.

When she woke up I found out why she is suddenly snuggly today. She squirmed and changed position and fussed for a few minutes. I sang to her to calm her down, which seemed to be working. Until she threw up the entire bottle. Sad. But I will accept all the loves she deems me worthy to receive in her sick state. For now, we are headed to the doctor.


*Updated* Valette has a serious cold which brought on a double ear infection. She got two prescriptions. I haven't seen her pull on her ear at all, so maybe we won't have too much trouble from the ear infections.