Thoughtful Sleep

Tonight, as I rocked Miss Olive to sleep as I do every night, I sighed a little bigger than usual as she drifted off to sleep.

My little angel baby will be 11 months old tomorrow, and as I’ve mentioned once or twice before, I have no clue where the time has gone.

As our bedtime routine, Olive kisses Daddy goodnight, we say “Thank you” and “I love you” to the angels near her door, then Olive helps me switch off the light before nuzzling her head on my shoulder.

Before she falls asleep snuggled tightly in my arms, Olive looks around the room, as if she’s trying to pick one thing to focus on to settle her final thoughts for the day.

Almost every night since she was born, we’ve had a similar routine. And almost every night, I’ve wondered what goes through her little head before she nods off.

When Olive was first born, I wondered how she could even settle down enough to sleep with so much to see and learn. She must have had complete sensory overload.

As Olive’s gotten older, I wonder if she’s remembering her favorite toys, thinking about the fun times we had that day. Does she have any memory of what we talked about doing tomorrow? Is she thinking about that?

Sometimes I know whatever she’s thinking involves whatever she’s learning at the time. When she started clapping, waving, “counting” by repeatedly pointing, etc., she did the same in her sleep. It was both hilarious and adorable.

Today, we had a really good day. Nothing amazing or out of the ordinary, just a good day. We had a fun morning, visited the Hubby just after lunch, and we ran some errands in the late afternoon before meeting Daddy back at the homestead for playtime and dinner.

Afterward, Olive opened a gift that came in the mail from her great-aunt and cousins. It included a duck bath mit – she quacked non-stop until bathtime, during which she insisted I wear the mit so she could repeatedly kiss it.

In her jammies, snuggled up to Mommy in the rocking chair, Olive once again ran through who knows what in her head. She fought her heavy eyelids, making sure to get in that one last thought before sleep won.

I’ll never know for sure, but I’d like to think she was fondly remembering our good day.