The Simplicity of My Happiness

Last night I had the opportunity to babysit my niece Molly who will be two in October. In case you may have forgotten how damn cute she is, I've included a picture with this post. Molly and I had almost 2 hours of play time together before it was bedtime. We built a fort to play peek-a-boo around, she emptied the contents of a box to sit on (and get a ride in) and read some books. She now recognizes me as her Auntie M (a name affectionately given to me by my other nieces) but pronounces it "mmmm". I want everyone to call me Auntie M, it's the best nickname.

Putting Molly to sleep was effortless. We got upstairs, read one more book, and I set her in her crib. She tipped over and curled up with her bear-bear, allowing me to cover her up with a blanket. I returned to the living room for a little P90X yoga. About an hour into my yoga session, Molly started to cry. More like a whimper. Crocodile tears. The I-just-woke-up-and-I'm-all-by-myself-and-it's-dark-in-here cry. I let her try to work it out for a few minutes, but I went upstairs to see what was up. There she was, sitting up in the crib, red faced, tears streaming. She looked up at me, and put her arms up reaching for me. I lifted her up to my shoulder, and she settled there, content and playing with my hair. After a minute or two of rocking, she poked her head up to reassure herself that I was not mommy, and then she repositioned to be cradled facing up. I rocked, and stared at her face as it drifted off to dreamland again.

I was upstairs rocking her back to sleep for a total of 4 minutes. It was the best 4 minutes I have had all week. All you moms and dads out there that are annoyed by the middle-of-the-night wake ups, this may be one of the greatest moments that you take for granted.

When I returned home, Frank was already asleep. When I went to turn off the lights he left on for me, I noticed a vase on the counter filled with orange daisies.

Simple happiness.