10 Months Old

I can't believe that my baby boy is 10 months old. He is quickly transforming into a clumsy toddler, and I swear his hair grows an inch every day.  Okay slight exaggeration, but he is changing at lighting speed and I am having major anxiety about it.  Where is my freeze button? It felt like yesterday that I watched him sleep tightly swaddled in his crib, unable to move, cozy as a bug.  Now, he is standing, peaking over the edge of the crib, shaking the bars, squealing with delight, a free monkey roaming his cage!
While I was pregnant, the best advice I got was to cherish and soak in these moments.  As a new mother, I have desperately tried to do so.  The long days and endless nights were worth it.  It has never bothered me to get up in the night with Owen.  Most nights, I enjoyed it and the nights he didn't wake, I secretly wished he would have, so that I could hold and rock him a little longer.  I will admit, I am that mother that never let's her baby "cry it out."  I have been warned by friends and family members that I shouldn't rock my baby to sleep for fear he will become sleep dependant for it.  Honestly, I want to rock my baby to sleep.  I enjoy it again and again, over and over, every single night.  Some of my favorite moments with Owen have been between that place of wakefulness and sleepiness, singing simple melodies to him.  If I didn't spend those extra minutes rocking him I would have missed his jolly sleep-giggles.  I would have missed his innocent sleep chatter, the smiles, and at times some of the most spiritual moments I have ever experienced.  I was blessed with an amazing sleeper, why stop rocking him?  He doesn't wake up all hours of the night screaming to be rocked, so why not?  Soon these opportunities will be gone, and I will never get them back.  For me, rocking my baby, singing to him, watching him drift off to sleep is my sanity and peace.  He is the happiest baby I know, maybe it is because he drifts off in such a happy state each night, rather than screaming it out.  Who knows?

"The Cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

For children grow up, I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep."

It is true, babies don't keep."

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” — Elizabeth Stone