Taking a size 1 in the face

Sharing a bedroom with Dewi involves compromises. By compromise, I mean we will do whatever it takes to get her back to sleep if she wakes in the middle of the night. We've already stopped setting an alarm because she rises, literally, at 6:15, as regular as the sun. I usually hear her stir and babble to herself around 6, but by 6:15 she stands up, peers over the top of her pack & play, and giggles/whispers "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One morning she managed to find my toes poking out and tickled them-- that's a way to startle Daddy in the morning.

This week, though, she's either having an unusually tough time sleeping through the night, or she's finally realized that if she gets up at 3am, that means she gets to cuddle with Mama and Daddy for a few hours. Not that she's much for cuddling. We usually spend at least 30 minutes helping her find a comfortable position. Last night it was my armpit. The tossing and turning is usually interspersed with some attempts to stand up and play with the lamp or anything else not quite within arm's reach. At some point, Karina will have Dewi lay down on top of her chest and will sing to her. That soothes her, but typically she'll then slither her body onto the bed, turn sideways, and lay her feet up on my face.

Now, little baby feet are super cute, but when they're cracking your larynx at 3:30 in the morning, or you take a chubby little heel in the eye socket, they're a little less precious. Dewi likes to slam her feet down as she's falling asleep. Something about the repetitive motion, I think, and it doesn't hurt a crib mattress but it does hurt Daddy's face. So I've got to coax our little angel into a different position without stirring her too much lest she think we're going to wake up and play.

Most mornings we wake up and she's curled up on her side, back to me, facing Karina, clutching her Taggie. No one really quite knows when she falls asleep, but inevitably she does, and wakes us up again at 6:15 so we can start our day. And so every night, we slink in to the room at 10:30 or 11, being careful not to wake her, and hoping that we won't see that little mop of black hair pop up before the sun does.