Silent Night

I love rocking and snuggling and singing to my babies. It happens all too fast, however, that they are too active for long periods of snuggling. Oh, I still get to rock and snuggle and sing to them for minutes at a time here and there- but it's just not enough! Now, both of them loved to be held for the first 6 months of their lives and would have been perfectly content never being put down. But...once they could crawl they were ready to go without looking back. Oh, my sweet, active little ones! They do, however, love to be held and rocked and snuggled when they aren't feeling so well. And oh how I do hate to see them sick and uncomfortable, but at the same time I've learned to appreciate this time to be near them and hold them and comfort them because I know too that even this stage will pass all too soon and that someday they might not want to be snuggled at all (oh perish the thought).
The other day brought back a flood of memories for me. Eli was quite sick with a stomach bug and I was snuggling him and singing to him one of my favorite Christmas songs- Silent Night. I couldn't help but think of almost exactly a year ago when he was still a newborn and going through his two week spell of fussy times in the evenings. It was nearly Christmas and so I would walk around the house rocking him, picking up (because he seemed to be comforted by this particular movement) and singing him Silent Night over and over again (because it was Christmas, such a soothing song, and because I was indeed hoping for a silent night). Oh, that seems so long ago now.
Eli is generally back to health and the rest of us are all sick with the stomach bug. As I write this Lily is sick on the couch watching Maisey videos, Joe is in bed sick, Eli is napping, and I'm just trying to get by doing something that doesn't require too much energy. Here's hoping that this passes quickly and that we can go about the rest of our holiday healthy!