The journey of motherhood is an interesting one, to say the least.

There have been stages of motherhood that have been much harder than others.  There have been times where I felt so frustrated I couldn’t see straight.  My children have gone through stages I wanted desperately to pass over.  Then, some stages that seemed to be less than ideal at the time, turned out to be exactly what I needed in life at that moment.

Rewind to 2011 when I was deep in post partum depression mode.  We had whisked the family away to California for the weekend, just the four of us.  We got the girls to bed, and 5 minutes later Stella learned how to climb out of her pack-n-play for the first time.  We tried a few failed attempts to get her to bed when I finally just layed her down in my arms, snuggled her boo close and hummed with her to see if she would fall asleep.  It was just the cocktail of mama she needed because a few minutes later she was fast asleep in my arms – the first time in a while since she was now a busy, up and about toddler.  My heart had been drowning in the woes of depression for months, but on that night when Stella lay asleep in my arms, I felt my heart get a little bit lighter.  I rocked her to sleep every night of that trip, then when we got home, too.  Each night that I rocked her, I felt my tender mama heart being healed.  What initially seemed like a bad night  was one of my sweetest, most tender blessings.

Fast forward to a more current time – deep in the baby coma after delivering Grae and Stella started coming into my bed at night again, which is not unusual for her.  What is unusual though, is that her big sister started following her in sometime during the night.  They would sneak quietly into my side, hardly taking any room.  With Grae still waking at night and coming in to eat, some mornings I wake up with my entire family snuggled close in my bed. In this time of transition where I have been so busy with a baby during the day, having my bigger girls sleepy and snuggly tucked in bed with me has been a tender mercy.  I know that this season of life will someday pass, but for now I am relishing in the sweetness of our current chapter.

(Follow me on instagram @cassmiller to stay up to date on our #millermorningtime adventure.)