Sweet Bedtime and Morning Time

Before becoming a mom, I wondered how two people could bond without understanding each other's words.  How would I know my child's needs from his cries alone?  And how could he know his parents and their love?

Finding ways of expressing our sheer joy over William has been one of the things I enjoy most about being a parent.  This often takes the form of making multiple googly-eyed faces within a 10" distance from his face, squeezing him tightly while smothering his chubby cheeks with kisses, and singing.

Now that William is 10 weeks old, he is even starting to respond to my non-sensical, love-struck craziness.  And that just melts my heart.  See Morning Time video for more of that :).

Matthew and I sort of stumbled into a certain pattern for William's bedtime by doing things we liked to do with him...things that fit our personalities as well as met W's needs.  For some reason I had become deceived into thinking that I had to use a particular "method" based on what a book told me to do in terms of putting my child to bed.  (Problems with trusting my own instincts run deep!)  I became weirdly afraid of doing certain things for fear I would create "bad habits" or a child that needs x,y,z, in order to go down.  While those books are helpful and well-intentioned, I almost allowed it to govern my parenting and steal a lot of joy and personal expression in the process.  But the Lord has taught me through this struggle.  Now I'm even trying to utilize this new freedom in other areas such as not being too reliant on recipes, step-by-step instructions for a DIY project, etc.  Learning to be more free in those things.  And it's fun!

So, I choose to share with you all this video of how we often put William to bed - with much snuggling and cuddling, prayer, and singing.  To view the video, click the link below the picture.

I wrote the lyrics to this song before William was born.  It's special to me because I can remember praying "So now I lay me down to sleep..." as a child.  It always brought me so much comfort to picture Christ and His angels guarding me during my sleep.  It's to the tune The Chain by Ingrid Michaelson.  Such a magical song.  Matthew usually does the echo part that you can hear in Ingrid's version.  He was too camera shy to do that in the video :).  It's a mesmerizing song that puts William to bed every time.

Lyrics:
The sun sings bye, the clouds clap back.

The stars and moon come out to play, and it's time to say goodnight.

Our God is near, you're in His sight.

Tomorrow will be another day, and it's time to say goodnight.

So now I lay me down to sleep.  And pray the Lord my soul forever keep.

Angels guard me through the night. Until I wake to morning's early light, so now

I lay me down to sleep.  And pray the Lord my soul forever keep.

Angels guard me through the night. Until I wake, until I wake, to morning's early light.

William's Bedtime

This next video shows William the morning after the video above.  He is starting to giggle and make noises in return of our giggles and noises.  It's a lot of fun.  And I don't even care that I am totally making a fool out of myself by talking baby talk all day long and singing when I am NOT the singer of the family.  My brother got those genes!

Songs in this video: Desert Lullaby by Chris Stuart, Little Bird and Who's My Pretty Baby? by Elizabeth Mitchell
I love Desert Lullaby because he will likely be our only child born in Colorado.  And we have loved listening to Elizabeth Mitchell's CD 'You Are My Little Bird' from my sister, Christine.

William's Morning Time and Giggles!