a sucky moment

Some of my best times with Hayley are when I have put the camera down and I’m just with her in the moment. Case in point: last night; I had just finished taking a bunch of great shots and video of Hayley happily talking and hiccupping, when I noticed her getting her “tired look”. Then she started to rub her eyes and I knew she could use a nap. So I carried her up to her room, carefully place her in her crib and she started crying. This is not uncommon, she usually will cry about 10 minutes fighting sleep, before she drifts off. For some reason, though, I just started to softly stroke her cheek with my finger, and suddenly she stopped and looked at herself in her bear mirror. Then she looked at me, grabbed my hand, put my finger in her mouth and sucked on it. While she sucked she continued to just stare at me and I stared back. Occasionally we would smile at each other. Often, she would play with my hand. She sucked and sucked for sometime and it was this amazing quiet moment between us that is hard to describe. It felt like everything had just slowed down. The sun was going down and I had not put the light on in her room, so the room had this soft shadowy feel and it just felt like the whole world could drift away and I would stay there with my daughter sucking my finger forever. But of course reality sets in. Well more like my aches and pains set in. My back was starting to hurt from the hunch over position I was in, and my nose was getting increasing stuffy and potentially drippy. Reluctantly, I slipped my finger from her mouth, gently kissed her and quietly left the room. I would like to say the Hayley drifted off to sleep, but she didn’t. She was quiet for a few minutes, but then she started to cry. She never did nap.