A morning

I awake at 4:32 am, peeling my eyes open to look at the clock as a baby screams "mommneeee" for me from the room at the other side of the upstairs hall. When I find her she is covered in tears, red faced, wet diapered and totally freaked out. I'm not sure what woke her up but whatever it was, Jon and I were going to sleep through it. I sweep her up and change her diaper but when I try to calm her back into her crib it becomes clear she will be joining us in our bed. Still on the two hours of sleep I had over the previous insomniac night I try. And when I give up and bring her to our bed at 5 am Jon opens one eye, mumbles a half asleep "it's ok" to acknowledge that I feel bad about bringing her to bed with us and rolls over a little to make room.

Over the next thirty minutes I watch 20 lbs flip itself in every direction so as to successfully kick both myself and my husband in every funerable piece of soft tissue we have exposed. In a last ditch effort to fight sleep she flips herself upside down placing her feet on my boobs and her head against my left thigh and crashes out with my stolen covers wrapped around her. Cold and exposed with tiny toes on my chin I fall asleep from sheer exhaustion.

I am told that around 6:30 am she woke up and started bugging the hubby. I slept through that part and awoke around 7 am as he was talking to her in the bed between us while she practiced 11 month old gymnastics and toddle walking on piles of comforters. It takes another 12 minutes before it becomes clear I will not be conscience any time soon and as Jon reaches his fully awake point at around 7:20 they make their way to clean diapers and a bottle downstairs while I drift back to sleep.

I awake at 9 am to the sound of whining downstairs. I glimpse at the clock and yell downstairs (in the nicest way possible) that it is nap time and I hear a few minutes later the clonk of baby knees climbing stairs with an encouraging daddy behind them. Minutes later a tired hubby lumps into the other side of the bed and quickly drifts back to sleep as I hear the baby bedtime noise maker playing music in the crib over the baby monitor.

I awake near 10 am and decide I should get up before the baby does. I make my way downstairs and determine they had waffles for breakfast. I decide to make myself some waffles and put on CMT while I drink a cup of tea. When the baby wakes up from her nap at 10:30 I rush up the stairs to get her so she doesn't wake up the slumbering Jon across the hall from her.

We do a round of diapers, clothing for the day and head downstairs with the promise of a snack and juice cup. While she snacks I talk on the phone with my mother and BFF in WA and then she plays for awhile by herself until she lures me into the floor to play too.

She has a lunch of ham and cheese and apples while I clean up some of the kitchen and then when we go upstairs for another diaper change Daddy wakes up at around noon. We talk a little and then they play on the bed while I finish doing some upstairs clean up.

In the beginning of my life as a mother I never got to sleep in. I was always the one up. Recently, after the cough illness that just passed here, Jon has started getting up with the baby on occassion. It's probably the 2nd best gift he's ever given me... ok maybe the third best. It's wonderful to know he's down there loving on her and that she's calm and happy while I snore LOUDLY alone. It's better than going to the bathroom with out a toddling audience of one. And that my friends is saying a lot.