In unison, your hands fly to your mouth as you struggle to stifle an upwelling batch of "not here, not now" giggles. You know that if your eyes meet his, you will totally lose it so you intentionally avoid his gaze. After softly closing the door, you find his hand, give it a squeeze and whisper,
"Isn't she the best?" And before you know it, you're headed downstairs to look at the pictures you took of them earlier that day.
Fawning over our children is easily done once their in bed for the night. Frequently, we'll plant ourselves in front of the laptop and view recent video or scroll through images of our two children; both of whom, we'd felt eager to see off to bed less than an hour before. It's as if you're saying,
"Hurry up and go to bed so we can go downstairs and miss you."
Between t.v. commercials (keeping.it.real.) I search my brain for Eliza's one-liners, share the latest entries into Henry's spoken vocabulary and express my day's greatest, "You've got to be kidding me" moments. It's not even noon yet and I have a solid list already.
- 10 minutes after dressing in a pair of khaki pants, Henry, who had recently dumped a cup of water onto the lower half of his jammies sits himself in my lap. Like a sponge, I involuntarily soaked in all of that refreshing goodness.
- Eliza cut a chunk of her hair off this morning with a pair of child friendly scissors. I bagged it for Andrew's viewing pleasure.
- Earlier this morning, I pulled a popcorn kernel out of Henry's footie. I'm impressed that it traveled down his form fitting sleeper where it finally made it's way to the bottom of his foot.
It's true. I find happiness in the way Henry smells after retrieving him from his crib. Kissing the top of his head, my lips linger as I draw in his scent a second time. Andrew thinks it's total crazy sauce and kind of gross that I will casually smell his and Eliza's blankets when gathering them at bed time.
As a child, I'd cry when my Mom washed my own blanket. It erased that intangible piece of comfort. But like my kids blankets, the' smell that is them' quickly reproduces itself after a recent washing. I have this video to thank for that recent conversation:
Despite the adorable nature of these videos, nothing warrant a sense of longing to see ones child in the dead of night when your body is DEMANDING sleep. However, true distress of dear child serves as motivation and can help add an increase of patience. But still... all of that lovey dovey sentiment is out the window (for me anyway) once I've said "goodnight' to the world.
Last night, as we waited for sleep to come, Andrew and I hear a big "thud" come from Eliza's room. The loud noise was followed by a series of confused whimpers.
"Eliza just rolled off her bed." I knew he was right as I climbed out of bed. Mustering up a tone of sensitivity, I helped her back into bed. I left her room, touched by her vulnerability.
"She's so sweet." I murmured to Andrew as I snuggled back into bed. Later, after an hour and a half of sleep, I wake to hear her crying. This is odd coming from a child who consistently sleeps through the night. I try to copy my previous attitude as I round the corner to her room.
"Mom!" she squeals between her distressed sobs.
"What is it, honey?" is my concerned reply. "Did you have a bad dream?" Holding her sippy cup into the air, she exclaims,
"My ice is all gone!!"
"Huh?"
"I want an icy cold! Mom. I need ice in here." She shakes the cup. "NOW!" After refusing her request, I kindly telling her to "deal with it" as I return to bed. As I climb in, I hear Andrew mutter a,
"was-suh-matter..."
"She's a diva. That's what's the matter." Wrapping up this insanely long post, here's my diva performing the holiday hit, 'Five little pumpkins'
