Waking Up is Hard to Do...

It doesn’t happen often.

The vast majority of the time, the girls wake up in the mornings and from naps around the time their clock turns green.  “Mommy, my clock is green!  I slept well!” comes blaring through the monitor…sometimes gleefully – if they’ve been awake for a few minutes and are ready to get up – and sometimes groggily – which makes me think they’d still be asleep if it weren’t for their trusty clock.

Over the past month, though, it’s happened twice that I’ve had the pleasure of waking my babies up.  In both cases, it was from a nap after an extraordinarily busy morning of play (and a late lay-down time).

There’s something so incredibly precious about seeing my sweet babies lost in slumber.  It’s rare that I glimpse much “baby” left in them most days, but sound asleep, it takes me right back to how they looked in those first few weeks after they were born.  Their delicate eyelids, their pouty lips, the rise and fall of their chests, the position of their bodies…I remember it so very well.

And then, after I take in that beauty, I have the pleasure of rubbing their warm backs, whispering softly to them, “It’s time to wake up, Baby Girl.  Mommy’s here.”

When the girls were newborns, it would sometimes take quite a bit of effort to wake them up to feed them.  This is one of my most prized pictures, taken with the girls were about 2 ½ weeks old.  

I entitled it, “Waking up is hard to do.”  I love how they’re streeeeeetching those itty-bitty, teeny-tiny arms and legs.  Look at the wrinkles on those little legs!  I just want to kiss those miniature toes!

I love how it sometimes takes the same amount of persistence to wake them, even still. 

Their arms and legs are many times bigger and stronger.  Their peach fuzz hair has grown into long golden-brown locks.  But they still stretch and moan and contort their bodies…and I am still trying to soak in every ounce.