Ice cream and thought

My daughter is asleep next to me and I am eating ice cream. As her romper says, life is good.

I spent about an hour tonight trying to get S. to sleep in her crib. Our usual routine is that we rock in our chair and she nurses to sleep. Then she goes in bed with us.
Yes, my daughter sleeps right next to me in our king-sized bed. An arrangement that suits all of us just fine. (Why settle for a crib if you can have a king-sized bed?). So there I was tonight, practically in Sophie's crib, rubbing her back, humming, with her little sad eyes looking at me, and all I kept asking myself was, "Why am I doing this, exactly?" Because I should. Because so and so's baby sleeps in a crib. Because the doctor looked at me funny when I said that I co-sleep. Notice, all of these are dumb reasons to do anything.
I swore I would never have a child of mine sleep in bed with me and husband. Then I actually had a child. A child that I would nurse for an hour, try to put down, that would instantly wake up crying, that I would have to start the process all over again with, ALL night LONG. Until I couldn't function at all. So one night I let her sleep with me (after many tears over whether I was ruining her for life). And she slept. I slept. We all slept.
It was beautiful. Since she was about 5 or 6wks old, S. has slept for about 5-7 hours at a stretch. When she wakes up, she rolls over to nurse and goes back to sleep. I never have to get up. It is beautiful, I will say again.
I love waking up to watch her stretch her arms, and legs, and toes and give me a first sleepy smile. Then I scoot her over to Husband so I can feed the dogs, and come back in to see her all cuddled up with him, having a morning chat, or sleeping some more. All three of us get some precious time together at the very start of our day. She is happy and healthy.
So it hit me tonight (as I devoured some coffee ice cream) that one day S. will sleep by herself. Sooner rather than later. That these times of us all sleeping and waking up together are precious and will be short in the scheme of her life. I am going to try to enjoy them rather than end them before any of us are ready.

And just so you know- we are very careful about this co-sleeping business. No blankets or pillows near her. She is not near the edge of the bed. And sometimes, she does sleep in her own bed for a few hours before joining us.