He Hangs The Moon

She woke up at 1am again and spent the next 5 hours in my arms, at my breast, drifting in and out of sleep, fingers reaching for my hair, content. I swore I was going to night wean her the day she turned one, I talked about it for months ahead of time, dreamt of it; a little bit of space, some freedom. But I'm not ready and a transition like this needs to be entered with absolute certainty. Of all our "lasts" together this is the one that gets me, for there will be more babies, none of them will be mine but they will arrive and I will get to share in all of their many joys except this. This is it, and so I remind myself that there will be years and years of uninterrupted sleep and perhaps just a month or so more of holding her through the wee early hours. 

Oisin is falling madly in love with her in a new way now that she is more mobile, more curious about his ways, eager to participate with him and adore his every move. In this manner, he is finally getting a taste of the benefits of his role as big brother, up until now it's sort of been a bum gig filled with lots of responsibilities and reminders (and reprimands if we're really being honest), but now? There are games to play and he is the leader, there are jokes to share and he knows the punch lines to all of them. Her eyes shine and she giggles so that he'll know just how much fun they're having and how he pretty much hangs the moon. He darts off to the next thing and she flails her arms and speed-butt-scoots across the living room to catch up. This is part of the reward for having two so close together and a major payoff for all the hard work. As usual, it's more than worth it.