Iris has been asleep for a couple of hours now. A few minutes ago, she started letting out some rather sad little bleating yelps through the monitor. I made my way upstairs to find her completely asleep, sprawled over her blanket in a rather uncomfortable looking pose. As I moved to right her limbs in to some sort of less pretzeled arrangement, she started crying and wiggling around again. I took the opportunity to rearrange her, cover her up a bit, and generally try to help her calm down.
She never woke up, really. She didn't open her eyes. I pressed my palm into the back of her head and tried to make contact with as much of her back as my weirdly angled forearm could muster. She flinched a few more times, but eventually stilled enough to seem genuinely asleep again. After I pulled my hand away I sat back and watched her for a few minutes. Part of me was waiting to make sure she wouldn't wake up again, but after a bit I realized that I was also trying to study her.
She is growing so fast. I looked at my baby tonight and saw her dream a big kid dream. In the low glow of the little glass turtle lamp who guards the changing table, I wanted to take a picture of her. She was so expressive. It felt like eavesdropping because she's such an active sleeper. She looked like she was upset or angry, or like she was giving someone a very serious dressing-down. Is it possible for a baby to look smugly confident while having a bad dream? If it is, that's exactly what she was doing.
I gave her a mental high-five when she very half-heartedly kicked at the air one last time before finally crashing in earnest. She's already so interesting, I honestly can't imagine what we're going to do when she starts talking. We'll have to find a way to record everything she says, because I can pretty much guarantee you that it will either be the funniest thing you've ever heard, or a really awesome name for a band, so either way, we'll not want to miss it.
(sorry guys. blogger wasn't working when I first attempted this post. thought you'd like it eventually, at the very least.)
I think these are the "realest" moments you get . . . before they start talking, before they start testing everything, before they are overloaded with sensory stuff that requires so much attention. Watch, because it becomes a blur.
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