My favourite times…

There are many favourite parts to every day, and I have many favourite things about being a mother.  I love watching Rosie take a bath as she enjoys it so much as she shows off and splashes, and laughs at herself.  I love seeing her new accomplishments, such as learning to climb the stairs by herself.  But at the moment one of the favourite parts of the day comes in the evening when the little ones are winding down. 

After dinner time, before bed time, Rosie gets very tired and needs some full on Mummy time; and she likes nothing better than to cuddle up on my bed, in her PJ’s, reading stories with me.   We get a selection of board books out and she snuggles up close to me on the bed. I always let her pick which stories she wants to read.  She just loves books at the moment (and is going through a real ‘Mummy’ phase which I’m quite enjoying!)  At the moment her favourite book is a baby’s first picture counting book.  Her favourite pages are the 7 balls (I think because she has recently learnt how to throw a ball and really enjoys rolling a ball back and forwards with a willing playmate), the 20 dogs, and the 50 sweeties page.  She barks at the doggies, and tries to pick the chocolate buttons off of the sweetie page.  She can happily read this book over and over.  I just love to snuggle up close to her and watch her little expressions change as she turns the pages.  It is a really beautiful part of the day and one that I treasure.

Another of my favourite parts of the day is my night time snuggle session with Barney.  Now that he is taking the melatonin he is much calmer in bed and our cuddles are less about deep breathing and reducing anxiety, and more about a sleepy bedtime chat with a back scratch and cuddles.  The reason I am enjoying this so much is because as Barney gets sleepy he gets so loving (he is always loving but often anxious too).  Being a very verbal young man he likes to talk to me about how much he loves me.  He lays there stroking my face telling me that he loves me more than anyone ever loved anybody.  He says ‘I couldn’t live with out you, we are best friends, I would never do anything to hurt you’. And I always reciprocate by saying the same back to him.  He kisses me and strokes my hair, and I scratch his back until he doses off to sleep.  I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this, as it makes a huge change to having to constantly calm him down at bed time.

A few nights ago he asked me “Mummy, what is a Guardian Angel?”  So I explained to him how some people think that there is a special angel that watches over us and protects us, and we talked about this for a while.  He seemed to like the idea and appeared very peaceful. Then he said to me, “Mummy, you must be my guarded angel then” and explained how I protect him and keep him safe. Now he often comes to me saying “you are my guarded angel, and I am yours” which I think is totally the cutest thing ever!