Annie is one already!
This photo seems like it was taken yesterday,
42 weeks pregnant...nearing the end.
A calm room with light peeking through the window, a neat clean bed, no laundry in sight. A tiny bed with a canopy that would make fairy-tale princesses jealous... she never slept a wink in it. One night, after rocking her, bouncing her for at least an hour, I gently moved my feet across the soft carpet. Even that was too loud. My heart was beating in my mouth as I heard the sounds of calm... Silence and tiny whispers of air coming from her tiny little mouth.
So I'm standing confident, the confidence a parent feels when they have successfully lulled their crankasauraus baby to sleep. But its fleeting, because you know that its 1.. or 2 or 3 am... and your arms hurt, and your legs are sore, and your eyes have been shut this whole time. You know you have to put her down, or keep holding her. What will wake her up? anything but this right here, this continuous holding, breathing... tortuous confident success.
Bending over to put the little duckling in bed and suddenly, a "humph" from baby, mother pauses, and backs away.. confidence dwindling... heart thumping, and we're back in the all-to-familiar standing posture. minutes pass, and you just do it. you just lunge forward, without a care rationalizing that you can't just stand on aching legs for the rest of your life, for the rest of this hour that she's sleeping. You need to savor it, you need to just put her down and put you down. Lunging, confident, quick baby "humph"--but still sleeping, baby's back touches cold sheets of cradle... breathing gets quicker... mom gently tries to remove hand from back of tiny warm baby head (by far the hardest thing to do thus far), attempts about 6 times, ok... now you can stretch your stiff, cramped hands/legs/back before bed. Then , a bath of happiness, a beautiful raincloud of warmth--the kind of gentle rain that comes when its still sunny outside (used to be my favorite)... you get in bed.. well I get in bed, feeling the warmth of my -just as tense- husband. we close our paranoid eyes.. 4 minutes.. 5 minutes... 10 minutes.. 11 minu... "WWWWAAAAAAA"
run to baby, pick up baby, nurse baby, baby sleeps, mom and dad take turns sitting up sleeping, passing her back and forth in our bed for 3 months... the beautiful canopy sits there for all of those months too... mocking us
day after Annie came, one year ago, can't believe it
dad and bean taking a much needed nap.
My favorite. the first night with her. finally here after 42.5 weeks.
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