The times that I’ve been around babies and their parents, I’ve always wondered what “magic touch” the parents had to make their children choose them over other people. Is there really that much of a difference when a child is held by their parents as opposed to another person? How can a child cry with one person and then immediately stop when their mom or dad takes them into their arms?
I have to admit, I couldn’t imagine this being the case when Dan and I had a child. There was no way Brittain was going to prefer us over another person who had MUCH more experience with babies and children. Why would she want two people who didn’t know what the heck they were doing? I couldn’t imagine it, but it happened.
In her first 3 months of life, Brittain has certainly been around a lot of people. I didn’t start noticing it until a couple of weeks ago, but she has started to give her daddy and me preferential treatment. Sounds crazy, right? For a while, I thought I was imagining things, but I realize now that it’s a real thing. So, what is the reason that a child chooses it’s parents over another person? Perhaps it’s the fact that we know her habits. We know how she likes to be held, what her “i’m bored” cry sounds like, what her “I’m hungry” cry sounds like, what her “I don’t know why the heck I’m crying” cry sounds like.
Although I never wish for her to be fussy with another person holding or taking care of her, it is nice to know that if she HAD to make a choice, she would choose us. I mean, hey, I carried her around in my tummy for 9 months, endured horrible back pain and gained 60 pounds. She BETTER choose me, right? 
Being a parent is still the most wonderful and most rewarding part of life. Even when fatigue sets in, or I look around my house to see that there’s dust an inch thick on every piece of furniture that we have, or the clean laundry never actually gets folded and makes it to the drawers because it just continues to pile up in the guest bedroom, I still can look at Brittain and know that she’s our greatest accomplishment. The house can be messy, but when she smiles, none of it matters.
I took these pictures a few nights ago. Dan worked the late shift every day last week, so his job as soon as he walked in the door was to get Brittain to sleep. When these pictures were taken, Dan had laid Brittain down on our bed with him beside her. Instead of her going to sleep, as the plan was supposed to be, they ended up playing. It was the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever seen. Brittain was on her back and kept turning on her side so that she could give Dan “kisses”. After she would kiss him, she would roll back over and start it all over again. This went on for about 30 minutes. This was one of these moments where sleep could wait.
