This is why we became parents

This morning, the munchkin started crying a little before 7, so my husband when in to attempt to cuddle her back to sleep in the chair for a bit. This is something that only Daddy can do (at best it works for 5 minutes for me), but which he LOVES to do. See normally the little monkey isn't much of a cuddler. There's so much to do and see! She needs to be on the move! But in her half asleep state, she's a champ!

The dog argued with me for awhile in the other room about why I should get my butt out of bed to let him out (it's raining. He doesn't really want to go out anyway!) and then once I'd done that, why it was NOT OK with him that I went back to bed instead of feeding him right away. He's very pushy... Anyway, around 7:30 my husband brought the munchkin in and she did something she NEVER does when he handed her to me in bed - she cuddled! Usually, when brought to our bed in the morning, she's a wiggle worm who is quite mad that we're not on the move to get her breakfast (Man, they are ALL so pushy!). We could sort of get away with morning bed time when I was nursing, as I could take care of breakfast there, but she'd still wiggle and squirm and we had to be on top of our game to make sure she didn't take a header off the bed.

But not this morning. This morning, she cuddled and did her great drooly baby kisses. She did still squirm a lot, but she also gave hugs and kisses! Even the dog got into the mix - he jumped up and the two of them interacted better than they ever have. Normally, he's a bit wary of her. It started out as scared - my 50 lb dog ran away from my 8 lb newborn and hid behind me. Then eventually it grew to a somewhat resentful tolerance - although still when she's coming at him, he tends to run! Now, he likes her when she's in her high chair - she's sure the finger foods I give her are meant for him - but gives her a wide berth most other times. But not this morning - this morning, he liked her face (her reaction was awesome!) and was very tolerant of her petting.

Then he jumped off the bed again to say - um, hello, FEED ME! And she cried! Where did he go? And then - well, this is one of those things that as parents we think she might have grasped a concept, but are willing to consider that maybe it was coincidence. Outsiders would say this was unrelated. Her grandmother would call Mensa to let them know about their new member. Anyway, then she started hitting the bed / my leg, the way that we do to say "come up" to the dog (you know - we'll pat the bed / chair / etc. next to us and say come. Yes, he's got his run of the house and is on everything. And we wonder why he thinks he's the Alpha... As an aside, my husband got him as a puppy in college. There was NOTHING in his college apartment that was (or should have been) off limits to "keep it nice." There were things he should have been kept out of to prevent him from catching some sort of disease... but that's a different story).

But, this morning, as our "puppy" (whose 10) was licking our little munchkin's face and she was squirming away giggly to cuddle into me, my husband looked at me and said - this is the payoff. This is what we signed up for.