Real White Noise

I never used a white noise machine until Baby Girl came along. I wanted my kids to be able to sleep without the aid of some machine ... Now with two kids, a small house, and all of us sleeping in one family bed I got real and saw that we desperately needed that aid (and so many others!).  It's become our norm to turn on "the rain," as Kalev calls it, when we put our babies to bed. Luckily there's an app for that and the rain can travel wherever we need to go to get the job done :-) So handy, this technology.

This past weekend, Mother's Day weekend, we spent with my family at Dillon Beach to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. The second day we were there I sat on the beach with my baby girl nursing happily. I looked down and this active, I'm-distracted-by-everything-so-it's-hard-for-me-to-nurse-or-sleep-in-public-anymore (and oh yeah I'm teething) little girl was fast asleep. The breeze whispered across both our faces. The sun beat down overhead. And the waves crashed against the shore just a bit away from us. I watched her. I watched the waves. I watched my son in his rolled up jeans (yes that's how you dress for Northern California beaches) race back and forth from the hole he was digging to the water to scoop some in a bucket to the tide pools to explore the animals. His laughter rang out with complete glee, freedom, and thrill and it sounded so good. And so did those waves. I consciously thought how I should stay sitting up, my back propped against my bag, my baby sleeping on my chest, the large rock formation blocking us from the wind, and enjoy this moment. Look at the water. We haven't been to the beach since I was pregnant, last July, almost a year ago. And we love the beach. It rejuvenates us. So I should make this short weekend count. Eyes open, take in everything, remember it all.  The kids were happy. There was nothing I had to do. I could just be.

Instead I laid down on the quilt, sweet Aviella asleep in the crook of my arm, our faces inches away from each other, breaths mingling, stomachs pressed together, sun warming us on the cool day. I slept. The waves crashed in the background. So much better than my rain app. And even though I felt I should be soaking up the joy and peace of these moments with my eyes, my body soaked them up with a lovely peaceful sleep there on the beach, baby in my arms, the beautiful, soothing sounds of the ocean in my ears. 

Real white noise and the total peace it brings. Amazing.