Cuddlebug

I had a wonderful weekend with my babygirl. She came grocery shopping with me, and flirted up a storm with all the little old lady shoppers and the cashiers. She ate a bunch of food, bringing much joy to this mother's heart, and is clearly in the process of making us a bigger baby. I had to go down into the basement and break out the plastic totes full of 18-month-old clothes inherited from Auntie G's daughter L; it was like Christmas all over again. Hooray for hand-me-downs!

Sunday is my laundry and housecleaning day. Babygirl spent, literally, an hour playing intently with (a) a clean black bra she fished out of my clean laundry, and (b) a colorful little vinyl teddy bear which long ago broke off the toy bar of her (now retired) walker. Why did it never occur to me before that these two items clearly go together? She laid the bear down and tucked it in with my bra. She wrapped my bra around her head like some sort of bondage gear and then tucked the bear in under her chin. She stood the bear up and wrapped my bra around it til only his head was visible. And then, just like *that*, she was done with both items and moved on to the next thing.

My babygirl loves *loves* LOVES the Wiggles. Just can't get enough of them. We've got 4 Wiggles DVD's with enchanting names like "Hoop-Dee-Doo, It's A Wiggles Party!" and she would watch them all day long if we'd let her. She gets to watch them on my old portable DVD player, which has several buttons that don't work and is therefore the perfect item for a baby to use given that she likes to smack the buttons with her open palm. When not in use, the DVD player in its case hangs by its handle from the top of the bookcase in her room, right above the changing pad on top of her dresser. Interestingly, since we started putting it there, she constantly uses the sign we taught her for "need a diaper change." Then she'll lead me or my hubby into her room by the finger, and while we change her diaper, she'll point at the DVD player shouting "That! That!" You know, she's never enjoyed having her diaper changed, and generally prefers to wait until her pee-pee filled diaper is at the point of exploding to be changed. Now she'll ask for a diaper change practically every half hour because it gives her another chance to ask to watch the Wiggles. We only let her watch twice a day, and use the time she spends glued to the little screen to shower or fold laundry. Does that make me a bad mommy? No, I think not, just an opportunistic one.

Also Sunday, she took an absolutely perfect nap. At 11 AM, she asked for boobies. She nursed until she was done, climbed across my chest into the "put me to sleep" position, laid her head down, and closed her eyes. She was out almost instantly. I gently rolled her off me and made my escape. She slept exactly long enough for me to make a BJ's run for diapers and wipes, and to sweep/Swiffer the back hall all the way up to the second floor, no small task given our big dirty dog and all the blue collar men's boots that go up and down the stairway. I had time to drink one final cup of coffee before I heard from the baby monitor the change in her breathing that indicates she was waking up. I went in and laid down next to her. She climbed back across my chest and spent the next twenty minutes flipping from one cuddle position to another on top of me. She would close her eyes until I thought she was falling back asleep, and then open her eyes and give me a huge smile. Then she'd bury her face in my neck and give me kisses. It was, like, the bestest baby cuddles EVER. All she wanted was to feel her mama's body next to hers, for me to keep her warm, to smell her mama, to feel her mama's touch smoothing her hair and stroking her cheek and smelling her neck. I felt like we were wrapped in a warm cocoon of love, there in her calm, quiet, dark bedroom. I don't know how long the cuddles would have gone on, if my hubby hadn't crept in to check on us. Babygirl sat up with a radiant smile, gave him a kiss, and held out her arms to be picked up and brought out into the world again.

She is so wonderful right now, as she rides the fine line between babyhood and childhood. It is as if she combines the best of both. I love her so very, very much and on some level I can't see how she could ever possibly be as wonderful as she is right now. I file away the memory of our 20-minute cuddlefest to savor, this morning as I ride to work, in a year, in ten years, decades from now as the end of my life draws near.

She is seventeen months old today. Happy "birthday," baby.