While she was sleeping...

...she slept with me.

Emma loves her own "space". She isn't shy about wanting hugs or kisses, but she does want them when she wants them. Which is hard on a Mommy who wants to smoother her with kisses and hugs. To show you how far i'll go to get kisses, i came up with a game where if i "kiss" her, she can wipe it off. But if i "smooch" her, well, you can't wipe off a smooch! Emma now wants to play my 'kissing game' so she can wipe them off.

Back to sleeping...

A few nights ago, Emma told me that she wanted to 'swwweep with Mama'. Me, bieng the sucker that i am, readily agreed. She hopped into the 'big girl bed' and instructed asked Robert to please bring her Pachi. Off went the light, and she and i settled into bed.

Emma: (fake cough, fake cough) I dink i hava cough...(fake cough)
Me: Are you sick like Dada? (smiling to myself)
Emma: No. (fake sniff, fake sniff) But now i gotta snuffy nose. Tissue, pwlease!
Me: Okay...

A few moments later:

Emma: Pachi fweels like dancin' Mama! (Pachi dancing all over the bed...)
Me: Emmie, it's time for Pachi and you to sleep.

A few more moments later:

Emma: Weesus woves me, dis i know. For da bible twelllls me soooo. Wittle ones to Him beflong, forrrr dey are weekkkk and He is stwrongg! Ohhhh, yesssss, Weesus wuffs meeeee....
Me: (whispering singing...) Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me! The bible tells me so.

And then, we whisper sing all of the songs that we sing before Emma's bedtime: Jesus Loves The Little Children, The B-I-B-L-E, He's Got The Whole World, Twinkle Twinkle, Lullaby, The Baby Bug Song, Taxi-Taxi, The Buzzy-Bee Song.

You may be wondering why you haven't heard of some of these children songs before...

It's because i made some of them up. :)

After singing, Emma finally gets herself and Pachi comfortable and falls asleep. I stay awake for a long time, just listening to her soft breathing, and praying over her. I am beyond grateful for this little child. I may be teaching her Spanish words and not to fart in public and laugh hysterically but she is also teaching me to slow down. Slow down and look at and smell the flowers, rocks, bees, trees, leaves, dirt, the sun, the moon and the stars. You know, the things that sometimes loose their magic as you get older? Seeing everything again through her eyes reminds me of the true beauty of the world around me.

I finally doze off, only to be waken by an arm across my leg and Pachi on my face. Emma has decided to take over the king size bed, it seems. So i do the only smart thing to do: i go upstairs and get Robert to sleep with her. Thankfully, he falls for my sad story, lol, and goes to sleep with her while i sneak into her room and sleep on her amazing mattress.

So, while co-sleeping didn't quite work out like i had envisioned it, it was a sweet time spent with my tot and her Pachi, for which i'm grateful. I have always prayed over Emma, and it was nice to be able to do it laying next to her hanging on to my side of the bed. And singing with her in the whisper voice is always something that we do before bed....it is a perfect way to end the day and i cherish hearing her little voice singing. I know that one day, she won't want me to sing her to sleep, so it's best that i sing as much as i can now.

Now if i could just stop her from growing up so fast...