A Lovely Evening

Tonight something short of a small miracle happened. My very cranky evening lady spent the whole night smiling away and being completely content. Say what!?!

I can't say enough how interesting it is that babies seem to have some sort of sense that just when you've reached the end of your rope, they flip a switch. We've spent countless evenings in the last few weeks dreading the 5-7pm time frame. For whatever reason, during that time Adly would turn into some sort of raging monster that couldn't be appeased by anything but the boobie. This was not fun at all for poor Adam who would come home from work only to be greeted by immediate cries and screams. As a coping mechanism we began bracing ourselves every night for the Adly tornado of cries by downing bottles of wine. Just kidding, kind of.

For instance, last night, we went out for a nice dinner which she calmly sat through. Then we got in the car. First it was a small cry, then a big cry, then just screaming. By the time we got inside, she was just MAD. We gve her a bath, which she normally loves. She spent the entire time screaming in pure anger, refusing to look at us. She's going to be hell on wheels when she's 2. I wonder where she gets it from?

Fast forward to tonight. She and I went to the grocery store to get dinner items. Adam wasn't feeling well and she was still content so I brought her with me- of course this was before 5pm. As we entered the apartment after the grocery, she remained calm in her car seat. As with everything we do, we watched her carefully to see how she was going to react. Dealing with a testy newborn is like tiptoeing around a minefield. You take one step, bracing for a reaction and if you don't blow to smithereens, you take another careful step and so on. 

I put her on the couch next to Adam in the car seat and headed into the kitchen to put away the groceries. That's when I heard her cooing at Adam and ohmyword SMILING AT HIM. I knew it had to be a fluke. My little munchkin doesn't smile at night-- especially when daddy's around. As I quickly hurried around the kitchen putting away the items before she exploded into a burst of cries and anger, she continued with her coo's and her smiles- all right at daddy. 

Let's face it-- these day's if she gives me an inch I'm going to take a mile. So then I began running around the house cleaning and picking up clothes that had been lying all over, then folding laundry, then doing the dishes, then starting dinner. And would you believe it...in all that time she sat in the car seat, smiling and talking away with daddy. I wanted to cry. (It's a reoccurring theme these days). For so long he has yearned to have his daughter smile at him and just enjoy being around him when he gets home from a long day of work. And tonight it finally happened. 

I don't know what got into her, but we'll take every second of it. This amazing event continued for over an hour before she started to get fussy. But that's ok. 

Thank you, Ms. Adly. For a very lovely evening. 

Love, 
Mommy & Daddy