Cuddle Time

Lately, we've fallen back into some old bad habits that have Brigid in bed with Steve and I at some point most nights. We'd gotten better about having her sleep in her own bed for awhile (mostly because we included sleeping in her own bed for the entire night on her behavioral chart, and she really wanted to earn all of the stars she needed to get the Elsa ice castle she was promised for good behavior...), but it has started to get out of control again. Every night, at some point in the bedtime process, she tells one of us, 'but I wanted you to cuddle with me for the WHOLE night!'

And the problem that we keep running into? It's that I really have no problem doing just that.

See, I know the day is going to come where she sleeps in her own bed. I know that there will come a time when cuddles with mommy don't hold quite the same charm for her that they do right at this moment. And when that day comes? I will be devastated. So, for now, I don't fight her as much as I should when she asks to sleep with us. I don't make the effort to walk her back to bed when she comes to me in the middle of the night to ask if she's been in her own bed long enough. Because when she sleeps with us? I wake up to a little arm thrown across my neck, or a small hand resting on my cheek, or the smell of baby shampoo and coconut conditioner coming from the head resting on my shoulder. And at those times, I wish there was a way to capture the feeling, the actual physical touch, of a moment, because when these moments happen, I know there will be no way to recreate them down the road, and I want, more than anything, to remember the feeling of that sweet girl snuggling with me every morning.

Even if I DO have to fight her for the blankets every night.