Babies at Bedtime

Bedtime. That moment that signals that we've miraculously made it through another day. 

Lately, some of our sweetest moments have been happening at bedtime. Incidentally, some of our most frustrating moments come at the same time. Since she's been sleeping in a big girl bed, one of us has been snuggling with her until she falls asleep. It started out as a sweet gesture, then turned into the only surefire way to keep her in bed and since Mason's arrival, has evolved into a quick nap for one of us.

For whatever reason, Teagan was always asking me to snuggle with her. It crushed Brandon and irritate me, since I saw her all day every day. I've found that as long as Teagan has a heads up or is involved in making our plans that she's pretty easygoing about most things, so I decided to take a step towards eliminating the argument we were having every night about who she'd be snuggling with. I printed off two simple (and ridiculous) pictures, taped them together and attached ribbon to hang them with. The picture hangs above her light switch and we turn it every morning to let her know whose turn it will be at bedtime that night. It's actually gone very well and has cut down on some of the whining.

 

Snugglefights and whining aside, on the whole, bedtime has become a really tender time for all of us. We've talked about reducing our routine of brush teeth, potty, pj's, prayer, scriptures, stories and snuggle but when we think about it, what do you cut out? We're trying to speed things along instead, since everything seems fairly necessary - although if anything goes, it tends to be the brushing of teeth. Bad parenting alert! But for every time I feel like a bad parent, Teagan has been doing something to make me feel like a good one lately.

I snuggled with her one night last month and the simple things that happened then have stuck with me long enough to write them down in hopes they'll stick with me for a while longer. I closed my eyes and felt a little nose against mine. I opened my eyes to find Teagan's face in mine, giggling uncontrollably. We were nose to nose and then she backed up to laugh and I saw that darling gap in her teeth and knew just what shade of blue those beautiful were, even in the greyness of the room veiled in night. I flashed forward to her leaving for college, taking a mental video of her laughing in all her wonderful innocence, her biggest care in the world being potty training. I basked in the sweet moment and closed my eyes, trying to etch it into my brain forever. Until I felt chubby, clumsy little fingers repeatedly stabbing at my eye, trying to pry them open. Rather than risking blindness, I opened them myself and once again found her giggling and giggled in spite of myself - not helping my cause of trying to get her to sleep. Abandoning reason...no, weighing things in my mind and coming to the decision that this is an opportunity for me to play with my little girl while she's still little (and what do we have to wake up for, anyway?) I started shadow puppets on the wall. She was in heaven. Dogs, birds, and dolphins danced on the wall beside her bed (incidentally the one we need to make an accent wall in light of said potty training...<shudder>) and she loved it. Worth every minute of sleep she may have lost. I looked at her and told her she was "my favourite little girl" - very careful not to say baby. She cupped what she could of my face in her tiny hands and told me I was her best big girl. Music to my ears. After a long day of butting heads, this was the best thing she could have said to her best big girl. But she didn't stop there: "You a good mommy, mommy." Then I kissed her. "Oh yuck!" When I told her that hurt my feelings, she quickly backtracked, "Oh yuck means I love mommy and daddies." Nice save. 

Mason doesn't sleep much, but when he does, he tends to do it in my arms. There is something about watching and feeling a baby fall asleep that is so precious. He struggles for a while and then decides sleep isn't such a bad thing (oh, if only they understood) and relaxes a bit, letting his blinks last longer and longer until finally, those beautiful blue eyes close, he heaves a big sigh and his body goes limp. Witnessing the transition to sleep is almost transcendent and I cherish these moments with both of my babies. A sleeping baby is a beautiful baby and I love to think about what they're dreaming about - particularly when there's a smile or a little laugh.

Last weekend, in an incredibly rare turn of events, Teagan asked to snuggle with me downstairs while we finished a movie and fell asleep on me. It was wonderful. After we transferred her to her bed (having to put a diaper on a half-asleep toddler is a hilarious experience as she presented her bum to me like a baboon and I fumbled through a backwards diaper application) Mason, who had been asleep for nearly an hour, woke up demanding to be fed. After filling his tummy, he fell asleep in the exact same position and I couldn't resist a photo. Such beautiful moments, so close together. As long and frustrating as our days can be, watching them fall asleep reminds me of all the best parts of being a parent. And then we wake up.