I Miss Her When She’s Asleep At Night

There are times in the day when I need to get stuff done. I need to prepare for work. I need to clean the house, do laundry, figure out what to cook tomorrow, pay bills… waste time on facebook (hey, I’m being honest here). During the day, I love it when she takes a good nap or two. It never seems long enough though. I’m usually in the middle of something or just getting started and I’m interrupted. Sometimes she’ll babble for a while, which is very nice. I’ll wait to go get her until it escalates into a “mommy come get me!” fuss. Sometimes she awakes crying right away.

She’s very good at going to bed at night around 7. We have a routine and most nights she welcomes her crib and doesn’t protest at all. She still wakes up throughout the night though. Sometimes she gets back to sleep on her own. Sometimes I can sing to her from the door. And sometimes, especially when she’s teething or has a stuffy nose, I have to go in and nurse her back to sleep. I’m sure the infant sleep trainers would balk at this, but I’ve learned to follow my instincts.

So you’d think I would be so glad to have a break when she goes to bed. Then as I’m getting stuff done or “wasting time”, which I’m more apt to do at night when I’m tired, I see her little shoes on the floor. Or her hat lying on the couch. Her little toothbrush on the bathroom counter. A pile of clean baby clothes to fold. Her favorite little bunny that she likes to hug. The random box where she so purposely hid a couple of little toys.

Then I start to remember little moments during the day like when she put her spaghetti sauce covered hands in her hair at dinner. Or when she did her funny little sassy dance. Or when she brought me a book to read. Or when she signed milk and crawled into my lap to nurse.

And I miss her…

Until the middle of the night when I’m in REM and she wakes up calling for me. Then I’ll admit… I’d rather see her at 7:00 A.M. Ha Ha!