Today started out perfect, because it started out 2 hours later than normal.
A-h-h-h-h-h-h. Sleep.
One of my most favorite things in all the world is waking up without an alarm, after a long, sound, sleep, with my baby and my boy sleeping soundly next to me. We didn't wake up until 8:30 today!!
Needless to say, we were all so very happy. Breakfast, showers, play, and off to work with Dad. I took one look at the house, decided my baby was much more important, and proceeded to lavish attention on her like only a mommy can. We spent the morning laughing, pretending, exploring, kissing, petting the kitties, reading, going to the store....and then....a nap for an hour and a half! I cleared off our bed and laid there and read until I fell asleep, and then when she woke up after an hour I brought her in our room and we laid there and nursed and snoozed for another half hour. Talk about weekend bliss.
It wasn't as hot today, thank goodness, but it hasn't cooled down at night yet so mid-day gets pretty stuffy in our house. (With no cooling overnight our house never seems to dip below 80.) So I buckled Eden in her stroller and we decided to go out. Before we left, I put in the big girl car seat, and Eden got her first ride in the car facing forward! Oh, you should have seen the smiles! And the looks of wonderment as she re-explored her surroundings from a different point of view. Our first stop was the drive-through car wash - another first - and she thought that was pretty cool, too.
We decided to avoid a little more of the afternoon heat in the house and go to the lake to walk around and chase the ducks, but somewhere along the way we lost one of her shoes. Forty-five minutes later, with momma in tears (new shoes! and no ducks!) we got back in the car and headed home...
Unfortunately, no nap on the way home. Maybe it was the new car seat? Maybe she was already on her second wind after all the lost-shoe-searching? Who knows. But no nap.
And the rest of the evening was a combination of playtime and fussy. We did hop in the bath together, which is always fun. She looks at me like a quizzical little bird, as if to say, "Mommy, what are you doing in here?" But we always have lots of fun. Tonight, though, she was just SO tired. And there are so many things she wants to do, but can't. Like put on her pants. Or understand that she has come to the last page in the book, and the reason she can't get that last "page" to turn is because it's glued to the back of the book. Oh, the sobs--like her little, sweet little heart would break. She wasn't angry, just heartbroken, so she just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed into my shoulder until she finally sobbed herself to sleep.
Watching her cry was exhausting. But, in a way, it also seemed cleansing. She was crying because she hasn't figured out how to sort out her emotions yet. I, on the other hand, just tend to hold it all in and be the big adult until I just can't hold it back anymore. (Read, crying over a $10 shoe.) I felt a release of sorts, holding her and comforting her while she cried. I couldn't make it go away, but I could comfort her through it. What an incredible, emotional, almost spiritual experience.
I can't wait for tomorrow, to see her sun-shiney soul when she wakes up in the morning. I think, after all this sleep, it's back. :)
