My Baby Girl's (Fourth) Cold

No, I'm not a masochist.

When I said yesterday that I wasn't exactly grateful for her (fourth) cold in 3 months, I wasn't lying.

Because colds (in babies) are incredibly frustrating to me for a couple reasons:

1.  I feel bad for my munchkin who can't breathe through her nose.  And therefore has a hard time drinking a bottle.  And also therefore cannot self-soothe and put herself to sleep with her thumb.  And when she's tired and frustrated because of those things, it's just so sad!

2.  It usually means I will not get good sleep, since she won't.

In a word, colds are just frustrating.  I know I don't enjoy them when I have them.  And it's even worse when the baby girl has them.  (Probably worse for me than her, since she's mellower than I am and is better at going with the flow.)  

And last night proved to be a night of less sleep.

And I'm no saint.  I will admit that, at 3:30 this morning, when I heard our angel groaning from her room (because she couldn't put herself back to sleep by sucking her thumb), I was a little frustrated at loss of sleep.  Especially when she started full-out crying when I started rocking her to help her sleep.  I knew it would be a long "night."  

But then, I had an attitude adjustment.  Because here's the thing:  now that my sweet girl is mobile and able to do so much, she wants to.  And she's gotten to where, even going down for a nap, she doesn't want me to snuggle her... she just wants me to put her in her crib so she can roll on her side, suck her thumb, and go to sleep.  So only at night, after her last bottle, do I ever get to snuggle her anymore.  And it's usually only 5 or so minutes, because I know there are still Mommy chores awaiting me.  But who does those at 3:30 in the morning?

But at 3:30 in the morning, my precious baby is tired.  And she wants to sleep.  And when she can't, she wants comfort.  And so she wants her mommy to snuggle her.  And so, for an hour this morning, I sat and rocked my baby girl.  Who was willing to lie contentedly in my arms and let me snuggle her.  So my attitude changed from one of frustration to one of gratitude.

And once again, I realized what really matters.  Because one day, I will be done having babies.  One day, my babies will be grown.  And I'll get all the sleep I need -- and all the sleep I want.  And I won't have a baby to snuggle and rock.  The time for snuggling and rocking is now.  And while I don't wish for her to have a cold every day of her babyhood...  I am learning that I can find the joy in even the undesirable things of life.

Because it is a joy to rock my girl.  To hold her.  To look in amazement at this long body that was once so much shorter.  It is a joy to look at her sweet face and to feel her breath against my neck as she sleeps.  It is a joy to feel her wiggle and sit up and burrow until she finds a comfortable spot.   It is a joy to have that extra hour where it's just me and her, gently gliding in the warmth of her room.

It is a joy no hour of sleep could give me.

And so I'm grateful for this cold that is a bit of unpleasant generally.  Because it reminded me to cherish the moments that will one day be gone forever.  Because it gave me a heart-full of joy in the form of middle-of-the-night snuggles with my sweetest baby girl.

And maybe that was a lesson I just needed to learn.

What are you grateful for today?