Bittersweet

My baby is growing up . . .

For the past few weeks I've been able to put Alyssa down for her naps wide awake. I make sure she has a binky in her mouth, one for each hand, turn on her aquarium, give her a kiss, and tell her to have a good nap, then walk out of the room and 9 times out of 10 she's fine. But it was a whole new ball game if I tried to do that at night. She would get hysterical. So, I was either nursing or rocking her to sleep every night. And sometimes I would complain about it, but the truth is I loved watching her all sleeping and puckered up in my arms or feeling her head cuddled into the side of my neck as I rocked her. Tonight she seemed wide awake and didn't want to nurse, so I figured I would give the "nap time routine" a shot. Worked like a charm. Not a peep out of her.

*sigh* My baby doesn't need me to go to sleep anymore. I'm so proud of her (and proud of me for getting her to go to sleep on her own without forcing her to cry it out), but it still makes me a little sad. Although this could be a one time deal and I could be getting all worked up over nothing. Goodness knows its happened before ~ motherhood is anything but predictable!