She looks so peaceful, doesn’t she? My camera would have taken a different picture last night, though. At 11:45, when I was just filling my water glass to head off to bed, Breanna woke up. This would not be a big deal in and of itself, except that she then inexplicably wouldn’t go back to sleep. I never talk to her when she wakes up, beyond “shhh” and the occasional “it’s okay” but she woke up completely nonetheless.

She then proceeded to keep me up for hours into the middle of the night. I have no idea what it was all about, but it wasn’t all that bad, really. She wasn’t crying and she wasn’t squirming to get out to play. She was quiet and snuggly and she would lie beside me, smiling, then she would sit up and rest her head on my stomach and just look at me. We talked softly to each other, me with words and her with coos. Every so often I would say, “night night Breanna” and she’d lie down and turn her head away, but then she’d start over again.

Eventually at some point I said please a few times and she finally laid down one last time, curled up in the crook of my arm with her back against me, and she drifted off to sleep.

During those hours lying on the bed with her, more awake than I really wanted to be in the wee hours, I realized that as long as a night like that feels, those moments are so fleeting. I don’t know when she’ll stop needing me in the middle of the night but it will be sooner than I think. Some day she won’t want to snuggle with me and she won’t smile up at me with so much happiness just because I’m there. And some day I’ll read this entry again and remember how much love there was in her eyes one November night and I’ll probably cry and be grateful than instead of being frustrated, I just enjoyed the quiet darkness with my baby.