The goodnight thing.

The "goodnight thing" started before my memories begin. I don't know if I was a baby or a toddler but from the moment that my brain jumped in and decided to start keeping track of the events around me the "goodnight thing" has existed.
My mom always tucked me in at night and every night with me cuddled in my blankets we would laugh and giggle for about 20 minutes and then it was lights out and my mom would lean over and perform the following:
"goodnight" ::kiss::, "sleep tight" ::kiss:, "sweet dreams" ::kiss::, "see you in the morning" ::kiss: "I love you" ::kiss::, "goodnight" ::two kisses::
as I got a little old {pre-teenish} I could recite the whole thing in mere seconds by cutting it down to "goooooodnight, tight, dreams, morning, you night" with kisses flying everywhere and peels of laughter. It was always my favorite part of the day. Just us, lots of laughing, and lots of love. There were times when things were tough but we ALWAYS performed the same nightly ritual, up until i was in my teens {I dont remember when it stopped but I would guess around 9th grade}.
Our little "goodnight thing" {as I dubbed it when I was about 4} is such a part of my relationship with my mother that it's what she chose to write on my wedding quilt, it's what she called to say the night I had Amelia, it's what she says when she comes to visit and I'm on my way to bed.
And now, I'm a mom. And each night while I rock Alice to sleep, Cheyenne gets to put Amelia to bed. But before she crawls in she insists on running out to me and wrapping her arms around me as I kiss her all over her face and say:
"goodnight, sleep tight, sweet dreams, see you in the morning, i love you, goodnight."

This is motherhood.

. Sadness.

Something awful happened a few weeks back and I had planned on writing up a post about it at the time but then decided that some healing time was needed for the partied involved but now to share with you guys some sad news that's hit our little group of loved ones.
As most of you know I have a small circle of "best friends" {though each bristles at the use of such a childish term} and one of those is my friend "sister from another mister", Amanda.
Amanda called me in December to let me be the first to know that after a few months of trying she was pregnant. YAY! Amanda was the first person to know about all of my pregnancies and lived vicariously through my pregnancies and first years as a mom. She's my sister and we share everything so to hear that she would be joining me in the mommy ranks was incredibly exciting. When she and her husband came to visit I unloaded tons of baby stuff onto them that we no longer need and flooded them with my "wisdom". The most epic of baby showers was planned and everyone in her life fell in love with this little baby-to-be.
To make a long a terrible story much shorter, at 20 weeks along Amanda lost her baby. She let me know right away and we both sobbed together over this horrible loss. My heart broke into a million pieces hearing the pain in my friends voice and knowing that she was so far away both in physical distance {she lives in Denver...for now} and emotional {although I had had a miscarriage it was nothing compared to her losing her daughter half-way through a pregnancy}.
Cora Ann would have had a birthday right around Alice's and I know that both this Mother's Day and that day in August this year will be terrible for Amanda and her husband. Of course I will give her all of the love that I can to try and ease her pain but I know it's not enough...only time is.

.8 months old.

Baby sister is now 8 months old! Can you believe it? I certainly can't.

As always she's still the happiest baby ever; we love her to death. In the past month she's learned to full on army crawl {and man alive is she fast at it}, sit up unassisted {for the most part}, say "hi", "mama" & "dadda" {though she says them all indiscriminately for the attention/practice}, she's SO CLOSE to finally cutting those first bottom teeth, and only wakes up once a night {thank the heavens}.
She's learned so much in the last 6 weeks that it's almost like someone flipped on her "on" switch and she's go go go. I firmly believe that it's all in an effort to get Amelia's attention and get her to play with her baby sister.