Little moments

My baby is getting so big...each little girl seems to grow up a bit faster, just as I wish they would all slow down a bit. Thea doesn't know it yet, but she is going to get a bed of her own when we move. She is a sleeper with specific desires...blankets are passionately hated, she needs room to stretch, she will kick and flail herself up to the headboard where she has far bypassed the nursies she wants. She has napped for more than an hour only a handful of times in her 14 months, has never slept through the night. Ella woke up smiling...Thea always, always wakes up crying. (Though she never gets to just sleep until she is done - she is constantly being awakened by her sisters.)
Some of these things are to be expected, the other girls didn't sleep through the night until they were well into the process of weaning. When Käthe started sleeping all night at 20 months I was elated; Ella was 30 months before she was doing the same. This is a busy time for all of us, and being out all day means we forget to sit down and nurse...and make up for it all night long. But we are also growing weary, both of us suffering from the lack of good sleep. It is impossible, or at least not sensible, to work on the sleeping now. Thea is usually easily calmed by her daddy in about 5 minutes, but 5 minutes of screaming is enough to wake Kate...who commences her screaming and re-wakes Thea. We are just a bit too close together these days.
Moving the baby out of my bed is bittersweet, though. I have never done so without another babe getting ready to take her place. Last night Thea was dreaming about dogs...barking in her sleep with her excited "woof, woof", then crying in fear, as she does when a dog gets too close. I held her tighter and told her I was there, so she began barking again, and whispering all those little nonsense words that mean she is talking to someone. I will miss the little sleeping laughs, the tiny mouth that still nurses in her sleep - even when the nursie has been removed. It will be great, however, to not wake up stiff and sore because the smallest person has been taking the largest portion of the bed.