My Girls

They are asleep on the couch.  Brother and SIR are watching the Cubs lose to the Brewers, I'm typing to you, Thomas the Wonder Dog is sleeping in the sunshine, and the stars of the show are out for the count.

It's an exhausting time.  Little Cuter likes her rest and she's not getting very much of it these days.  She's typically in bed by 9:30 at night.  That seems to be when FlapJilly decides it's time to boogie.  She's not a cranky baby, she's just awake and alert and ready to enjoy human interactions.

Unfortunately, her paternal adult human has to leave for work by 7:30 in the morning, and her maternal adult human does not do well when operating on fumes.  Enter Grandma.

It took them a while to recognize the value of an adult who was in the house and willing to hold a squirming infant at 4 a.m.  In the beginning, I was responsible for keeping Thomas calm and peaceful and far away from the she-finally-fell-asleep child.  That was complicated by the thunder and lightning which punctuated most of FlapJilly's first week of life.  He's a scared beast, cowering and barking and shivering in terror.  These behaviors are not conducive to continued slumber.

"Never wake a sleeping baby" is one piece of advice I felt comfortable giving.  Now that she is eating so well and gaining weight so rapidly, there is no reason to rouse her and feed her.  She's making her own schedule.  Unfortunately, that schedule does not align with that of her grown-ups.  

My plan was always to be the backstop.  I'd hold the baby while her mom showered, or napped, or pruned the hydrangea.  They didn't have to worry about me; I was storing up memories for the days and weeks between my visits.  I promised that I would nap when I could, that I would ask for time off if I needed it, that I would not overdo.

I've held up my end of the bargain.  They had a hard time relinquishing their squishy love bug.  She's so delicious.  They didn't want to wake me.  But, after a night or two of intermittent cat naps followed by an early morning wake up call, SIR was beginning to look green in the gills.  And so, a few days ago, there was a tentative knock on my door.  

My girl was holding her girl, several bottles of breast milk, diapers, wipes and a swaddling blanket. Would I take her?  

Yes.

She was alert, awake, and ready to listen to me.  I sang her her very own songs, thanking Frank Loesser for loving her name as much as we do.  I recited Mother Goose.  I told her a revisionist version of Rapunzel, where the crafty prisoner climbs down her own hair and saves herself.  I put her between the safety of my bowed legs and lay back, closing my eyes while she dozed.  She wasn't rolling anywhere that I couldn't feel first.  

It was heavenly.

She awoke and I fed her and we burped together.  A new diaper made her much less fussy and then we were back to singing and talking and planning all the trouble we'll get into once she's more of a participant and less of a curiosity.  The hours passed.  We nodded off, then awoke to find one another.

Did I mention that it was wonderful?

By the time my girl was ready to greet the day, it was 10 am.  She'd showered and dressed and was standing in my doorway, wondering if the rest of us were ready to play.

There's not very much I can do to smooth the wrinkles of early parenthood.  It's nice that one of those things brings me so much joy.  Now, it's time to finish dusting and folding the laundry and vacuum the house before I get on a plane home.  

I hope they can manage without me.... and that I can manage without them.