growing up

Last night, Annabelle was in her silly nighttime mood, this fuzzy place where she acts goofy and sleepy but won't shut her eyes, and if we put her in bed, she'll generally just talk and/or whine herself to sleep in a couple minutes. So last night, I put her in her bed, told her I loved her and proceeded about my nighttime rituals. I prepared the parts of her bottle, brushed my teeth, and sat down to read my scriptures. At this point, it sounded like silliness had turned to sadness, and I told Jess I'd go check on her after I read, thinking that she might just settle herself down, as she usually does. A couple minutes later, I finished a chapter and went to check her.

It was super dark, and with her new rolling skills, you never know where you'll find her, so I turned on the nightlight. There she was, sitting, crunched up in a ball in the corner of her Pack N Play, clutching her favorite blanket (the white crocheted one) and crying into it. She looked so alone and forlorn. My heart just broke. It took her a second to realize Mommy was there. When she did, she nuzzled into me, held on to her blanket with one arm, and fell right to sleep. I held her for several minutes while she slept. Without her silly animations, I could see in that sleeping face her tininess, as though the little girl that had bunched herself into a corner to cry couldn't possibly be in there. She's my tiny baby, right?

I can't believe that she's growing up so fast. I miss those tiny baby days, but I am continually amazed every day as I watch her grow and progress. She finally figured out the forward crawl yesterday, she sings (super high falsetto) on cue, she clap-clap-claps, she's learned to feed herself bits of food. It's so amazing that the small, helpless thing that once fit in one arm now requires both arms for rocking, that I can quite literally wrap my arms around her to hug her. But how I love that her arms can now hug back.