The Best Sweet Everything There Is

I carried her up the stairs.

All while nuzzling her neck and making baby talk and Who's Mommy's girl? and Are you my sweet little baby doll? and all of the sweet everythings that I whisper to her a thousand times a day.

I changed her into her pink and purple striped pajamas - the kind that zip up the front because they are so much easier than snaps that rebel in an all out coup and refuse to match up at night. And, morning. And, every time.

I gently laid her in her bassinet next to the bed and she cries and buries her head face down and then looks up at me and pleads, "But, I would be so much happier in there with you" and I scoop her up and we snuggle close and she eats and doesn't eat and this is our dance.

All night long.

But, she is my baby and it is my joy and this dance is a beautifully awfully wonderfully exhausting labor of love that I get to pour into her and I know, because I've seen it happen before my very eyes with her band of brothers, that it will be gone in a flash.

A flashdance, yes?

The morning sun began to pour through the window and she squirmed and squiggled and stretched (hello, there three-point Baptist), and I slowly opened my eyes to see the twinkle in hers announcing that, like it or not, morning had arrived and I held her close and while my eyes felt the heavy from an all night dance party, it took, like always, just a look from her to render tired nothing more than a nuisance that coffee will smackdown LIKE A BOSS.

Her brothers entered the room and my husband scooted them downstairs and before he climbed out of bed, he looked over at me and I smiled because there is nothing I love more than waking up next to him.

Then he looked at her: Oh, hi, baby girl.

The girl I cuddled and nursed and snuggled and scooped up and rescued from the utter pits of despair in her bassinet.

Who I danced with all night long. Who I've danced with every night and day for eight months.

Drummed up the very first sweet everything of her little life:

Da-da.

And, he laughs.

Because he wins.

For the fifth time in a row.