Only Alyssa

As I sit here in the family room, I smirk because I'm realizing how the pile of toys in here has gotten bigger and bigger. It has spread consistently during the last couple of months. And now my mind wanders to how little free time I have now compared to my pre-mommy days and how very much work this little skallywag is. I changed two explosive dipes this morning within ten minutes of each other. I had to chase her around and scoop her up umpteen times today because she was crawling to places where babies shouldn't be. I waited twenty minutes to start filling my tummy at Panera tonight because I had to feed my hungry baby first. She's getting heavy. It's hard to mix and heat a bottle of formula while I'm holding her in one arm and she's perfecting her Cirque du Soleil moves and trying to dive headlong into the kitchen counter.

But I do it.
And some days it is really, really exhausting and I find myself thinking that I would give my right arm to have an entire day to myself where I could do whatever I wanted and just be....free.

But if that ever actually happened, I think I would miss her fiercely after about the first hour. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. (Okay, I'd probably get a massage and a pedicure, but after that......) In fact, if she naps for more than an hour and a half or so, I sometimes have to hold myself back from barging into her room and waking her up....just because I miss her.

She is a ton of work. But then she wiggles and squeals at me when I get her out of her crib in the morning, and she shakes her little head and smiles from ear to ear while I feed her breakfast, and she crawls to me when she falls down and reaches her arms out til I pick her up, and she laughs and dances and her eyes sparkle. And she splashes in the bathtub and squeezes her rubber duckies and hums while I wash her hair. And she practices standing up and can do it for about seven seconds before she lands on her little tuckus. And she says, "Ahd-n" and "Mmm" and "DaDaDaDa". And my favorite time of the day: feeding her her bedtime bottle. She curls her hand around my finger and gazes up at me and I kiss her forehead more times than I can count. And I take in the sweet smell that is only Alyssa. And I hold her. I hold my girl so tight. And I thank God for that moment and I thank God for this girl.