Sunday morning in bed.
Shea and the Laide slept in a little while I, in a spasm of uncharacteristic domesticity made a batch of muffins. Look out Nigella Lawson.
Shea and I sleep with the Little Laide, partly due to notions of attachment, partly due to sheer laziness. Sometimes the battle to have her fall asleep in her crib is too much to bear. I nurse her to sleep curled into my side and then we all zonk out for the night. The up-side of this arrangement is those incredibly precious moments of feeling her stomach rising and falling against my own or having her hold my hand while she falls asleep. And that moment on waking in the morning to find her looking right at me, as if she'd been regarding this large animal beside her and deducing, I'm sure, that this smelly creature by her must be the 'Good Mother' she hears about from all the other babies.
I'm in the process of trying to figure out if the down-sides of this arrangement outweigh the up's. This particular lazy Sunday morning I was up unusually early as a result of being kicked all night by little Miss Piston Legs. This is something she doesn't always do, but one night of it is enough to reel. I think she likes knowing I'm there by her so will often reach out in her sleep to feel me with her arms or, as on this night, her feet. She pistons out her legs with such oomph that my highly-attuned ability to ignore night disturbances is simply swept away in the jostling.On nights such as this Little Laide will also decide that she's incapable of sleep without some oral comfort and will root around the blankets with her wee nose, grunting and huffing until we're all disturbed and wishing for some comfort. Sometimes she'll root and kick her way into a sideways position in order to fully explore her experience of Parental Provocation. If her goal is to win as much of the bed as possible, she achieves it on these occasions. Shea and I moodily playing a tug-of-war with the very edges of the doona as we balance precariously on the far sides of the bed and desperately try to tuck the thin edges around us. All the while feigning deep sleep in order to not be the one to attend the wriggling, piston-legged baby who by now is chatting away to herself, sprawled in the middle of the mattress.
And then, on waking, the smiley babe will be a warm, smooshy bundle of love and it will be like none of it had occurred. And the next night I will cuddle her into my side to nurse her to sleep, smiling sleepily as I drift blissfully into the dream world, relishing the feel of my of my baby tucked against my reclining self. So still, so peaceful...
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