Madeleine’s got this new thing. She loves to be on our bed.
One of the first things she says when I go to her in the morning is “I snuggle on your bed!” and one of the last things she screams from her crib at night is “Mama you come get me up so I go on your bed!”
She loves to snuggle, “have conversation,” and talk about the plans for her birthday party in September. Sometimes she wraps her little body around my arm, gently rubbing my hands like she has done since she was little. Other times she flops back and forth from one end of the bed and back like a fish out of water.
But this is where she wants to be. There are times when it works to let her lay snuggled under the gray polka dot blanket all by herself while I feed Georgia in the other room, and other times when she pleads for me to feed Georgia on the bed so she doesn’t have to be alone.
Before having kids, I was pretty set on the idea that kids sleep in their own rooms in their own sleep spaces and that is a hard and firm rule. It’s surprised me to discover how much I love having sleepy Madeleine in our bed. Just the sleepy variety. Restless or playful Madeleine aren’t very enjoyable, but sleepy Madeleine is a mother’s dream. Breathing in her sweaty hair, her hand loosely wrapped on mine, watching the rise and fall of her belly, and remembering… I grew this.
I spent my whole life dreaming her up, a daughter named Madeleine. I spent nearly a year sustaining her and imagining her and longing for her.
There was one night when she was a few months old. I was sitting in our rocking chair, holding her, and I just said “it’s you. I can’t believe it’s you.” Of all the cycles, of all the eggs, of all the combinations of this, that and the other… it was Madeleine.
There’s not a lot of time (or energy! I’m so tired!) for slow reflections of Madeleine. She is always back and forth between her room and the living room, happily pretending to go to the grocery store or make me bagels and her signature mocha shake. Right now Madeleine is a nonstop ball of energy, imagination, play, questions, attempts at helping, song, chatter and love.
and I am aware that this season of small Madeleine is so short in the grand scheme of things. She was a baby for just a blink. A toddler for perhaps two blinks. a child for a little longer, an adolescent and then a grown up. All I’ve known of her is baby and toddler, but, God willing, I’ll spend the most time knowing her as an adult. I’ll close my eyes and wonder was she ever really as small as she was? I’ll try to remember the sound of her feet running back and forth down the hall, the weight of her body as she trust falls onto me from high on her dresser. and I’ll desperately try to remember the feeling of her little body curled next to mine, her hands rubbing mine.
I am grateful for this new thing and I’ll soak it up until it was a “remember how she used to…..”
