My purpose for logging on this fine, blustery, overcast October afternoon is to report that my not-so-little baby fell asleep in my arms today. We offered her a nap a couple hours ago, sure she would take the opportunity (I peeked in and she was still, and thus I assumed, asleep). But noooo. I had to rescue her from the apparent hell that is her crib. After some time in front of the football game and a snack of apple slices and tiny little teddy grahams (mmmm, those little bears are tasty), I perched her on my lap in order to put on her sweater and jacket for a fun foray out to the yard. Instead of reaching her little arm out to help me get the sweater on, she simply laid her head on my chest and relaxed. Awwww! So I wrapped my arms around her and we rocked gently for a few minutes on the sofa. I figure it's always better to err on the side of an attempted nap, so we cruised down to her room where I offered her a binky and the blankie, plopped into the rocker, and there she fell asleep.
What came to me, after the initial thought that I better just sit there for a few minutes and soak it in, was how this was so unlike the little baby that used to fall asleep in my arms. Nursing to sleep was always the precedent, and that's several months past. This 15-month old girl was facing me, straddling my lap like little kids will do, with her cheek to my chest. We cuddled for some time, and as I was rearranging her (and me) in order to stand up and lay her down in the crib, I caught a glimpse of her face. Sweet, relaxed, innocent, protected, loved...all the things I saw would take days to scribe. But what I saw most was something I haven't seen for a long time, because we've been busy watching her grow and change, and those are things that are easy to get caught up in as the days go by and we are in a constant state of amazement and wonder. What I saw was my baby girl, as a baby again. Any mother understands the slight tug and yearn backwards to when your baby was really a baby. I'm happy to say that I have a picture from when my baby was really a baby, and it's a perfect representation of the face I saw within her 15-month old face just a few minutes ago. She was about 10 weeks old when I took this picture:
