In the wee small hours

Violet is a very easy baby.

Except when she isn't.

For quite a while she struggled with really bad - wait for it! - gas. Not bad like she could clear a room. But bad like she had a lot of trouble getting it out. And we all know how it feels to have gas trapped inside us. It's not good. It makes the best of us out of sorts.

So she was wearing her cranky pants pretty much every day, until the blessed moment when she would transform into Princess Thunderbum. (That's Princess Cupcake Bumbleberry Thunderbum to you!) Then the happy baby would emerge and we'd all get along until the next bout hit.

We talked to the doctor about it and she said it was possible that it was something I was eating, but that it was most likely just her immature system trying to catch up. So we waited it out, because some days were better than others and the magical three-month-mark was quickly approaching.

And suddenly, so much better! Which is why I was surprised the other morning when she was clearly in distress after I fed her just before dawn. Normally night feedings are a cinch with her. She goes right back to sleep. But on this morning she was too busy wailing to revisit dreamland.

So I strapped on the Baby Bjorn.

Seriously, the hand-me-down carrier has been a lifesaver for us. It calms her down - and often puts her to sleep - 99% of the time. It also frees up our hands and saves our biceps.

But I was tired. And - I'm not going to lie - I had a moment of annoyance that I had to do more than just feed her, change her and swaddle her before I got to go back to my own warm bed. Until I looked down at this:


Suddenly I realized how lucky I am that I can fix her problems so easily at this point. That there will come a day when I won't be able to fix what ails her just by strapping her to my chest and walking her around the house. And that that day will come along sooner rather than later.

One of my biggest challenges as a mom is to do something I have never been good at. The very thing that made me such a bad actor.

I have to be in the moment.

I can't think about the laundry that isn't getting done because I'm too busy watching her on her play mat. I have to look past the unpacked boxes when I wheel the stroller outside to go for a walk. And when the two of us are up in the middle of the night, I have to remember that these intimate moments together, when it seems like we're the only two people in the world, are fleeting and special and worth a whole lot more than a few extra hours of sleep.