You're Gonna Miss This

There was a time (ok, more than one time if I'm being totally honest) after Clara was born that I thought I would never be alone or sleep again. She nursed basically constantly the first month of her life, and I thought it would continue on like that forever. Now that she's a busy little six month old (and thinking about crawling, I do believe!) and she hasn't nursed in a long time - another post for another day - I find myself missing that cuddle time. Little miss doesn't want to cuddle unless she's sad, and then she's over it about two seconds later, or tired...and it took me awhile to figure this girl out when it comes to her getting tired since she's unlike most babies I've taken care of. Most of the time, she *wants* to be put done so she can go to sleep. Of course she has to have her lovey, the white noise machine on, be handed her pacifier (don't even think about trying to put it in yourself, Miss Independent can do it all on her own, thankyouverymuch!) and she can fall asleep on her own. While she does wake up a few times during the night, it's mostly just for her pacifier that she seems to have lost in the night even though we keep three in there for me and Clara to be able to find one at any given time!

I guess tonight my girl just needed a little extra loving. She woke up about 45 minutes ago, I gave her the paci and she spit it out. Repeat. She rolled over, and over and over and over....She laughed. She grabbed my hair and squealed. She fussed. Handed her the paci. She put it in and spit it right out. Every time I walked away she cried...now that is not that abnormal during the day time, she's hit a stranger danger and separation anxiety peak it seems. So I picked her up - it's not that I didn't want to in the first place, but I just know that most of the time she just needs her paci and picking her up is only going to make it worse since being in my arms seems to be too exciting for her to fall asleep. Not tonight. Tonight she cuddled and cuddled away, for about 30 minutes...I just sat in the rocking chair watching her while she played with my face (her favorite "cuddle thing" to do) and just thanked God for these precious moments.

Tonight Clara gave me the opportunity to think about how now that I've had time to miss the cuddles, I wish I could tell my post-partum, sleep deprived, hormonal and anxiety ridden self six months ago that "You're gonna miss this. You're gonna want this back." (I'm a believer that basically every life experience can be related to or described in a country song, by the way.) Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself to stop thinking about the future and appreciate the present. If I find myself thinking "I can't wait until Clara can do ___" or "I can't wait until we don't live in Maryland" or "I can't wait until we have two kids and they can play together" or "I can't wait until we have the money for ___" and, and, and...I try to stop and remind myself that one day, probably not very far away, I'll look back and think to myself "Remember those days I had with Clara? Just her and I, such quiet days where I could teach her and play with her and love on her all day long. Wow, I miss that."