Lily is rolling and rolling and rolling... all over the place! It's no longer safe to put her down for a nap in our bed, she keeps ending up in drastically different places from where I put her down. The cradle from Grandma Lu is coming in handy. When we move, we may actually have to get her a crib for naps as she will quickly outgrow that cradle.

Besides, with the heat lately, sleeping upstairs during the day has been a problem anyway. The other night, at about 1am, I took the futon mattress off the office bed and dragged it downstairs because I simply couldn't sleep in the heat. Downstairs is usually about 10 degrees colder! Had two hours of deep, blissful, dream-filled sleep before I awoke to cries from my sweet hungry baby. By the time I got upstairs, Mark had managed to rouse himself and had picked her up, but was looking a little bleary and confused. I took her back down with me and we slept on the living room floor together.

Which brings me to night time parenting. We've determined that Mark is free from night time duty as he works with power tools all day. Last thing you need is a carpenter falling asleep at the table saw. He will, however, always take over when he wakes to find me holding Lily up and saying loudly and firmly "Mommy is so tired, why won't you go to sleep, Mommy NEEDS you to go back to sleep!" or "I HAVE TO PEE... PLEASE LET MOMMY PEE!" LOL! Then he knows I'm a bit nuts from fatigue and will happily jump in. This seems to work alright most of the time. Sometimes though, I'll admit that I just really want to be the one that is not responsible. Sometimes, I want to take off this horrible, yet wonderful burden of being the only thing that keeps this baby alive day in and day out. Don't get me wrong, someone else would care for Lily if I were gone. But since I am here, she is all mine. Mark is GREAT and takes wonderful care of both of us, but when you get right down to it, this baby is my responsibility. This can be crushing. And it can be so exhilarating... to be so needed.

And then...
And then...
And then she opens her eyes and looks up to see her mommy looking down at her and this brilliant, wonderful, heart-breaking, brilliant, warm smile opens up across her face and her eyes dance with this awesome light...
And then...
And then...
And then my heart opens up with such joy. Such pure passionate joy that this child, this beautiful bundle of sweet baby, loves me. Loves me and needs me and wants me.
And she may not always feel this way.
But she does right now.
And that is enough for this mom.