The Tightest Embrace

When frustration turns into appreciation ...

8/4/18: during the hour of 6:45 - 7:45pm -- a moment I won’t forget.

After a 25 minute, back breaking, bent-over-the-crib-to-tickle-to-sleep situation - I crept out the room in complete stealth mode. Ya know, the kind where you hold your breath praying the floor doesn't make a sound and the baby stays fast asleep.

Successfully, I made it out of her room only to my surprise Nyla decided at the exact moment she would exit her room in need of some water. Her door soundly squeaked opened and simultaneously the house phone rang.

F U C K!

Natalie begins crying. I tell John, for the second time, that I literally can’t bend over her crib for another second. Because in between my 25 minutes of tickling, John went in to soothe her after my first walk out. He attempted the “lay down and I’ll tickle you” as I instructed him that this is what she responds to for me.

Just as he is knelt down to calm her, she screams through tears with no sign of wanting him to soothe her. And she repeatedly yells Mama! My heart cannot allow a child to scream in desperation for me and me ignore it, so I had gone back in to tickle her.

However, when the phone woke her I thought she would go to sleep since I snuck out of her room with her basically sleeping. This was not the case!

Ten minutes later and still bloody screaming, standing in her crib, I went back in for the third time. I asked her to lay down and go to sleep and that I would sit in the chair in her room across from the crib. This plan only infuriated her even more. 

Enter the moment I wasn't expecting!

I picked her up out of her crib to cool her in front of her window fan. This is the moment that had me almost in tears and awakened me to why being a mom is so raw and unconditional.

When I picked her up she immediately embraced me and wrapped her arm around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder. It was a tightly, i-need-you-in-this-moment kinda hug.

It was a different kind of snuggle. One that I hadn't felt since she was a tiny baby cuddled up on my shoulder.

I rubbed her back as she gasped for breaths to calm herself down. And this moment my heart felt comfort that I didn’t let her cry it out and at the same time sad that I let her cry at all.

She shifted from upright to a cradle hold with an arm wrapped around my back as the side of her face rested against my chest. I swayed as any mother would. She gently rubbed her hand on my chin and neck. And as she began to drift off to sleep she moved her hand to hold my arm.

I wish there was a way that I could’ve captured this moment with a picture but I stayed present until she was sound asleep. I laid her in her crib and closed her door.

These moments are what make motherhood! I know it won’t be long before she won’t need me in this capacity so I’m here for it. Once I had her to sleep, I laid down with an aching back but a heart so full of love!