Caffeinated nerves...

I have high hopes that tomorrow will be a turning point for our littlest.  Tomorrow morning, while Mama and Dada fret in the waiting room, baby girl will get a set of tubes placed in her ears.  Simple, easy, routine, hardly-even-surgery, surgery.  She'll be fine, and with any luck, she'll be better.

After tomorrow I hope that she can find restful sleep (though the night would be lovely), and find smiles and giggles more often than grimaces and cries.  I hope that she'll be able to hear the world clearly, and to know what the voices of love surrounding her really sound like.  I hope that she forgets the earache she has had for months, and that tonight is the last night I have to force her to take medicine, and coax her little body back to sleep through obvious pain.

Her surgery will be tougher on me than on her, for sure, and I will count the seconds until she's back in my arms.  The anxiety over a nurse taking her from me has already started, but I have to remind myself that she's in good hands.  This is my hospital.  These are my colleagues.  She'll be fine. 

Reading another mama's blog yesterday, I was reminded to document something that all too soon will fade into memories.  Just as this mama's little girl strokes her arm, when K needs comfort, she puts her fingers in my mouth.  My husband says that she has to 'plug in' to recharge.  Occasionally she twiddles her fingers, sometimes pinches my lip or my tongue, but usually just rests her fingers gently in my mouth until she falls asleep, or feels better, or both.  When she only needs a little extra comfort, sometimes its just one finger, or two... during restless nights of earaches, it's often her whole hand.  She's done this since birth, as far back as I can remember... she found her spot, and she claimed it.  She's cut my cheek with her nails and pinched that sensitive spot underneath my tongue, but I'll fess up... I will miss it when she doesn't do it anymore.  I've learned to talk with a chubby hand in my way, and I've learned to appreciate the specialness of those moments.  I laugh and tell her that she can't do it when she's in college, but secretly hope that she'll keep it up for months to come.

Tomorrow after surgery, she'll reach her hand for my mouth, and I'll let her.  I don't think it's so much the act itself that soothes her, but the closeness and the warmth.  If only a mouth full of baby fingers could be the cure for all of her stresses from here until forever.