The Night I Woke Brixton Up for Cuddles at 11:30pm

I was really hyper the other night.  I couldn't simmer down and get ready for bed.  Brendan was out of town, so I sat on the couch watching the Food Network and checking out blogs.  

Finally at 11:30 I decided to turn in.  But not alone.  Brixton made a few little peeps and I thought it would be so much fun(!!!) to have him sleep next to me.  So I got him up.

He was wide-awake, but so was I.  

Did I mention he was wide-awake?

Wide-awake.

  
We played.  He kicked and squealed.  We tried Skyping my mom.  At 12:15am we turned off the lights and played with a flashlight, the light shining all over the room, reflecting off of mirrors and making fun shapes on the ceiling.  Then we played with the seahorse.  Brixton was enthralled.  I imagined him thinking, "This is the best night EVER!"  

12:30 seemed like a good time to go to sleep.  At least it did to me.  Brixton didn't think so.  He thought it was time to hit, pinch, pull hair, roll over, roll onto me, drool (or was that me?), lose his paci seven times, and pull the blanket over his head and make suffocating sounds.  

I did my best to ignore him.  It wasn't hard.  He kept looking at me to see if I was looking at him.  And obviously I was since I know that.  Every time we'd make eye contact, he'd smile, which is hard to not return.  

45 minutes later he was settling down.  By settling down I mean he was only hitting, pinching, rolling, squirming, and moving every 30 seconds rather than every 5 seconds.  

Eventually we both fell asleep, but this was by far the worst night's sleep I've had since his birth, including the entire newborn stage.  Co-sleeping would have never worked with this baby.  All through the night he cried out, rolled over, smacked me, pulled all the blankets off of him and even once managed to put his foot on my mouth.  Any hopes of him feeling tired and sleeping-in were dashed when he woke up as energetic and chipper as a bluebird at 7:15am, discovered mommy next to him, and practiced using his eagle talons to carve his name into my face.  

There was one tender moment.  At one point in the night, he rolled right into me, cuddled up onto  my arm and slept for a bit.  We were curled right into each other and his little head was right under my face.  I breathed in his dreamy baby scent and felt my heart grow.  

Then, his tiny angel hand grabbed mine, he looked into my eyes and said, "Mama."  

Okay, that last bit didn't happen, oh, but a mama can dream can't she?