Snuggles

Annabelle’s newest “thing” is giving snuggles.

Like… LOTS of snuggles.

It’s a game to her… although she’ll only play with certain people.

She’ll run up to me, put her face on my arm or leg, and snuggle for about 5 seconds.

Then she looks up at me while her cheek is still pressed close, give me the biggest, cheesiest smile you’ve ever seen, then toddles/runs off to go do whatever it was she was doing before she got the urge to snuggle.

Up until now, it was just me that she would snuggle. Although she’s now added Daddy, Miss Cara (the lady who comes to the house for early intervention), and a handful of other people. She’ll occassionally do it to her sisters, but not often.

But what is super funny is that she really WANTS to snuggle other people too.

When we were in the OR waiting room on Friday, she would literally run around to everyone and stop in front of them, look at them for several seconds, sigh, then run on to the next person. It’s like she’s thinking, “I really wish I could give you a snuggle, but I don’t know you, so my mommy would get mad, and honestly, I’d be a bit nervous. Maybe next time. Thanks. Bye.”

Annabelle snuggles are incredibly dear to us, as you can imagine.

There were many months her first year of life that we were unable to even hold her, much less snuggle her. Even once she got “better” she was always so weak and always connected to so many cords, snuggling was just not the same as with a healthy baby.

And by the time she was semi-cordless, she was NOT all about snuggles. Too many people had pricked and prodded her and betrayed her trust. When your first year of life is filled with a myriad of people invading your space and inflicting unthinkable pain on you, trust is obviously very broken.

So that my sweet little Annabelle is far enough removed from that to give some snuggles is ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS.

On Friday, when we went to the recovering room to see Annabelle, she was not pleased.

Like out of her mind, screaming, do-not-touch me unnpleased.

The nurse feared for a little bit that she was disillusion from the anesthesia because she was so out of her mind.

But… while the sedation definitely had its effect, I think the main issue was, we’d broken her trust again. People had invaded her space, forced her to sleep, and messed with her ears.

Even Mommy holding her was not going to be acceptable. It wasn’t until we’d taken out her IV, gotten her dressed, and put her shoes on that she began to calm down.

By the time we were getting into the car outside, she was smiling at us and “okay” again. When we got home, she made a mad dash for her trusted and familiar toys.

Trust is a finicky thing, isn’t it? We learn what we can trust and what we can’t.

Annabelle has learned she can trust her Momma… even though I do have to occassionally be involved in yucky things like holding her down for shots and blood draws. But… she knows her mommy’s love and she can quickly forgive the things she doesn’t understand are for her good.

Annabelle’s FAVORITE ball– the “snuggle”ball!

However… the lady at the pediatricians office who gives all the shots? And the lady at the cardiologist office who does all the blood draws?

She literally screams at the sight of them. She doesn’t know them outside of the fact that they inflict pain. She has ZERO trust in them. One time we were in the waiting room and the “blood” nursed walked by and said, “Hi, Annabelle!” My sweetie quickly took my hand and began pulling me in the opposite direction! She’s no dummy-cluck!

This is a long story, and really its purpose was just to share about Annabelle’s super cute snuggles, but it got me thinking about God… and about how if we truly know Him, spend time with Him, and TRUST Him… we can see those ouchy times that He puts us through in a much different light… while we may not understand them, we can trust that He has us and won’t leave us as we go through them.

But if we look at Him only when “bad” things happen… well, it’s hard to put trust in a God we only blame “ouchies” on.

Praying today that we can all know Jesus as TRUSTWORTHY and ABLE and a really really good snuggler, even when the situation around is painful.