I Live For

the little moments with Riley. Last Wednesday night we were just about asleep and it hit me hard how much I missed snuggling her in bed with us...smelling her sweet baby skin, listening to her little breaths, looking at her peaceful face. It's been months since she slept with us and while we are glad for the increased hours of sleep and the room in our bed I have to admit I sometimes miss those days. T.G. consoled me with the reminder that she would soon enough be trying to sleep in our bed again and I let it go, but I was still thinking about it and wishing I could snuggle her sleeping little body one more time.

Today I got my wish because one hour after we put her down for her afternoon nap she was up crying screaming in her crib. For whatever reason in the afternoon she tends to wake up from her nap this way. We still haven't figured it out, but that's another post. I went in there to get her and picked her up and started snuggling her trying to calm her down when T.G. came in and started waving his arms at me trying to tell me that she was sound asleep on my shoulder. That isn't usual, so we both stood there for a minute not sure what to do with her. Put her back down in the crib? Sit in the rocking chair with her? But I was already holding her and I just couldn't pass up my chance. I took her into our room and quietly lay down on our bed and snuggled her close just like I used to do. I held my breath as her eyes fluttered open and peered at me before she let out a baby sigh of contentment and fell back to sleep. I couldn't believe my luck God's grace as an hour ticked by with me holding her close, smelling her sweet toddler skin, listening to her one year old sighs and looking at her angel face. I live for moments just like that.

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I read an article in Parenting magazine today about the many and varied ways babies show their love. Some of them were no brainers like Riley loves giving kisses and huggies. She certainly wiggles and gets excited when she sees us and is starting to cry and fuss a little when one of us leaves.

The article also talked about imitation as flattery or in her case L-O-V-E. Let me tell you if imitation is love this girl is doling it out for us left and right. These days she cracks us up when she will take my phone and hold it between her chin and her ear and walk around the house "talking" into it like she watches her Mommy do. We swoon when she picks up her baby doll and snuggles her into her shoulder kissing her head and patting her on the back. I tear up when I hold her and pat her on the back and she pats me on mine at the same time (mostly because my Dad lists this as one of his favorite memories of me as a baby). We watch amused as she stands in her kitchen and stirs things in her pots and bowls. We giggle as she tries to wear our shoes.






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Windy cold days, GO AWAY, bring the warm weather back, so we can play! (in a short sleeve onesie and no jacket in February!!!)

We had a spring teaser two weeks ago with an entire week of very warm, think 70's, weather. Riley LOVED getting out to the park almost every day that week and running herself silly. We tried to go out one day this week by going to an outdoor inline roller skating rink that is 2 minutes from our house. She loved pushing her umbrella stroller in a place with what must have seemed like infinite space to her, and I enjoyed not worrying about her getting away. It was fun while it lasted, but it wasn't long because the wind was fierce that day. Here's hoping for an early spring!

Back to the drawing board

It has been a rough couple of nights for us and we don't know what has happened! She has never been the best sleeper, but she's done okay. In my own time I managed to sleep train her my way and at about 6 1/2 months she started sleeping solidly through the night 12 hours without so much as a peep. I was over my monitor insomnia and feeling revived again until the COLD. Now, as I've already blogged the week of the COLD = NO SLEEP for anyone. She was completely off schedule and everyone was dragging. Once we were over it she did start to sleep better, however, she's back to where she was before 6 months!!! This means she's waking up every couple hours after we put her down and then she's waking up somewhere between 2-3 am WIDE AWAKE. This was less bothersome in the summer when we could all sleep in, but 6 am comes early and it's hard to be sleepy with Kindergarteners waiting for you. Sigh...I'm perplexed and searching for the solution. Please pray for more restful nights for us!!!

On a positive note, she's just so darn cute it's almost okay that we're not sleeping. Today was the first really chilly day of fall here and after bath time we got our first little lip tremble and shivering sounds. *No we are not neglectful parents!!* We quickly wrapped her up in a bigger towel, but she was so darn cute doing it that we couldn't help but giggle. I'm going to wrap this up and get to bed and hopefully sleep, I'll leave you with some pics of Riley and her best buddy Z from their playdate this week.

Playing with Mommy's sneaker.
She was surrounded by Z's toys and somehow a sneaker and a bag of papertowels were the most entertaining. Yes I have ginormous feet, and she has inherited them, don't worry they are good swimming paddles.
Heeeeeey, what are you up to?
Don't they look like they're plotting to take over the world?
Hi Linds! They enjoyed playing at Z's activity table together.
A great teeth shot! Maybe the upper teeth are on their way??!?!