Just So I Remember

Whenever this phase is over, I want to remember the time when every morning, at 6:00 AM on the dot, Jane screeched until Chase went and rescued her from her crib, and then she snuggled into bed with us.

She is very cuddly but not in a way that allows anyone else to relax. She is a demonstrative, full body, intense cuddler. And if you forget that, she will give you a bloody lip. Her favorite (read: only acceptable) position is straddling the chest of the person she wants to "cuddle" with and repeatedly, at odd intervals, slamming her body down into her cuddle resipient. She will usually aim for your neck, but its early, and her aim is frequently off. You can sometimes throw up your hands to catch her head as it comes crashing down, and try to redirect it, maybe off your clavicle, to a pillow or something, but Jane is not cool with this. She will screech her displeasure.

When her head hits the target, she will bring her arms up and wrap them around you, snuggle her hot blond head up under your chin, and go completely limp. You have about 4 seconds to snuggle, to appreciate her wonderful delicious babyness, to think, "we are so incredibly lucky to have this little lady in our lives," to sniff her head sweetly and think, "huh...maybe we should give her a bath today..."

After 3 or 4 or 5 seconds, she will wiggle and twist and swing her body back up, maybe smack you in the face a few times, screech like a bird of prey, and crash down again. This happens so many times every morning that Chase and I pretty much always have bruises on our collarbones. If you try to restrain her, or redirect her, or put her back to sleep, you will fail. The only thing that will break this cycle is a banana, cut up into little pieces, and a handful of cheerios.

I am her favorite right now, and so although Chase is the one who usually gets her out of bed in the morning, I am the main recipient of the "cuddles." It's funny because we've been here before with Wren, and although right now I would give one hundred million billion dollars for a morning free of crashing, face bruising baby heads, I know that someday soon she will stop wanting to snuggle with me so much in the mornings, and I will miss it.

And here, so as not to start a picture-less post trend, is a picture of the two constant blurs of motion in my house, "helping" me make piece a quilt top this weekend.