![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nadia dead-sprinted to our room at 5:30 this morning--which is how she does it. Things must be at a pitter-patter so that the cadence will remain etched into my brain, already tracing trails of nostalgia and missing even as we're still walking this path in time. Somewhere in her wind-up toddler subconscious she calculates the maxiumum toddlerishness.
Our cutoff at putting her back in her room is around 5ish, since after that it's too much effort for too little reward. She giggled as she crawled up into bed by me--giddy with being told she could stay if she went back to sleep and didn't play around (let me tell you the endless morning sagas of narration and when I don't take out a braided pigtail at night she spends the eternal hours of the precious morning playing with the end of the pigtail in a way that is small and annoying enough not to sleep through).
She cuddled in under the covers right next to me, in between D and I. She turned ever so slightly toward me, committing me to my position and pinning my arm.
"Hi mommy," she smiles up at me sweetly, chirping in her little mouse voice.
"Hi sweetheart."
"I woke up!"
"I see that."
"I got out of my crib all by myself."
"Yes, you did."
"I'm in YOUR bed."
"Yes you are. Now close your eyes and try to sleep."
"Okay mommy..." she snuggles in, sing-song, "I'm cuddling with my mo-mmy..."
And she did fall asleep.
I woke up to her next to me, still sleeping and arms spread wide in toddler abandon. Tiny belly rising up and falling down in deep, steady peace. Little upturned nose and fringe of blonde lashes. Hair a cloud of reckless blonde filament on the pillows.
I so rarely see her sleeping, now. Usually the moment I go in for a peek she wakes up. She doesn't fall asleep on me. She hardly naps.
It's in this moment, so close to my side, that she feels most like an extension of my own body. She moves when I shift, doubling down on her sleepy insistance with an arm reaching out and wrapping around me. I shift again and she re-clings.
She is very much a mommy's girl.
Some moments, some days, this is crushing and suffocating. Want someone else for just a second. Don't need to go with me to the bathroom when you're distracted and doing something fun with someone else. Don't insist on me putting you to bed yet again for the millionth time in a row when a perfectly good daddy is right there, ready to give me a break.
But that's not this moment. This moment makes me want all those other moments to stay mommy-mommy-mommy-only-mommy forever.
Our cutoff at putting her back in her room is around 5ish, since after that it's too much effort for too little reward. She giggled as she crawled up into bed by me--giddy with being told she could stay if she went back to sleep and didn't play around (let me tell you the endless morning sagas of narration and when I don't take out a braided pigtail at night she spends the eternal hours of the precious morning playing with the end of the pigtail in a way that is small and annoying enough not to sleep through).
She cuddled in under the covers right next to me, in between D and I. She turned ever so slightly toward me, committing me to my position and pinning my arm.
"Hi mommy," she smiles up at me sweetly, chirping in her little mouse voice.
"Hi sweetheart."
"I woke up!"
"I see that."
"I got out of my crib all by myself."
"Yes, you did."
"I'm in YOUR bed."
"Yes you are. Now close your eyes and try to sleep."
"Okay mommy..." she snuggles in, sing-song, "I'm cuddling with my mo-mmy..."
And she did fall asleep.
I woke up to her next to me, still sleeping and arms spread wide in toddler abandon. Tiny belly rising up and falling down in deep, steady peace. Little upturned nose and fringe of blonde lashes. Hair a cloud of reckless blonde filament on the pillows.
I so rarely see her sleeping, now. Usually the moment I go in for a peek she wakes up. She doesn't fall asleep on me. She hardly naps.
It's in this moment, so close to my side, that she feels most like an extension of my own body. She moves when I shift, doubling down on her sleepy insistance with an arm reaching out and wrapping around me. I shift again and she re-clings.
She is very much a mommy's girl.
Some moments, some days, this is crushing and suffocating. Want someone else for just a second. Don't need to go with me to the bathroom when you're distracted and doing something fun with someone else. Don't insist on me putting you to bed yet again for the millionth time in a row when a perfectly good daddy is right there, ready to give me a break.
But that's not this moment. This moment makes me want all those other moments to stay mommy-mommy-mommy-only-mommy forever.
