Even when I’m most tired I look forward to that twenty minutes I have with my daughter late at night. Usually around 11 or so I slip into her room with a warm bottle, pick up her limp body and we settle in on the daybed across the room. I feed her, my forehead inches from hers and my lips usually kissing her face all over. She doesn’t seem to mind and I can’t help myself.
Of course once her belly has been filled again and I go to change her diaper she always wakes up, looks at me and smiles. And, like I’ve done since she was only days old we chat. I know you’re not supposed to do this because then it doesn’t make it a dream feed, but I’m lucky because she always settles right back to sleep. Even if we do what we so often do. I talk to her, she smiles. I tell her she must have poison ivy and scratch her belly, she laughs. I pick her up, she bounces. I pull her close, she open mouth kisses me and then squeals in delight. She burps, I make a funny face, she giggles. You get the picture.
It’s this that I will always remember when she’s older and doesn’t think I’m nearly as cool or fun. I believe we’ll always be best friends, but the intimacy I have with her as a baby is something I cherish so very much.
I’m in the thick of it and yet I miss it already, knowing it will be gone in a flash.
