Not quite as expected

I had the evening all planned out perfectly. To celebrate our anniversary last night, I was going to prepare a nice Italian dinner (lasagna and salad), serve some of my brother-in-law's homemade blackberry wine, and then present my first ever homemade chocolate pie to Michael for dessert. We had been to see the Cirque Du Soliel show a couple weeks ago as our anniversary "date" and gift to each other (tickets ain't cheap!). So it was going to be a nice, relaxed evening together at home.

Since PJ always goes to bed around 7:30pm, I put the lasagna in the oven so that it would be ready at 8:00pm right after completing our usual bedtime routine: play with Daddy, bathe, read a book, nurse, and then rock until asleep. As soon as she was asleep, I put the last minute touches on the dinner, and started to serve it up!

Then Payton started to cry. I assessed the situation and soothed her as usual, rocked her back to sleep, and went back into the kitchen. Five minutes later, she woke again. I repeated the process only this time it took 45 minutes for her to fall back asleep! At 9:00pm, I reheated the food since it had been sitting out during that whole time, poured a large glass of wine, and sat down to begin our "romantic" dinner. Then...

She woke up again!!! For a minute, I thought she was playing a joke on us. I mean, are you serious? SHE NEVER DOES THIS! Of all the nights for her to go through something weird, it would be THIS NIGHT?? Dear God, make her stay asleep!!!! Ah but no...my prayers were unanswered.

I tried two more times to soothe her back asleep to no avail. Michael finished his meal and then swapped with me so I could finish mine. By 9:45pm, Michael decided to just let her get up. Oh, of COURSE, Daddy gets to be the FUN GUY!?!? Little PJ was wide-eyed and smiley and absolutely changed my mood from COMPLETE frustration to smooshy love and adoration within a matter of minutes!

So the three of us laid on our bed for about an hour and just played and talked. Michael said, "Payton just wants to celebrate with us!" She played and cooed and giggled and stole our hearts that much more. By 11:00pm, she nursed and easily fell asleep for the night.

So my well defined plan went completely out the window the minute it was to begin. But this night made us realize that our life together, our marriage (which was the whole focus of the celebration night), isn't just about us anymore. It now includes our precious little PJ and is, in fact, what WE are all about! So here's to another three years and beyond of the Ghaffari Family!