We get to watch as she discovers her world, the wonder of which Robert and Sherri illustrate well. Every other day, it seems, she does something new. One day she becomes fascinated with the decorations on the mantle, as if it had only just appeared to her (and indeed it had, as her vision improved). The next she’s uncurling her legs and putting weight on them as we hold her, and then a day or two after that, she’s enraptured by the blurs of color rushing across the TV screen, holding still to listen to the sounds.
We get to be her favorite people in her world, as small as it is right now. We’re the people she loves most. My heart warmed again when I laid my baby down to change her, a simple routine I could do in my sleep now. My mother was watching my daughter watch me with those big, sparkly blue eyes as I worked. “Oh, Georgi,” she sighed. “She loves you.”
She was only six weeks at the time, but my mother knew it, and I knew it. I see it when my husband picks her up in the morning and exclaims in that soft but excited voice in which we talk to babies, “It’s Daddy!” and her eyes light up and she smiles.
When I have to go to work, my arms ache to hold my baby, but it’s a good ache. It’s the ache that reminds me there’s something precious to look forward to when I get home: hugs, cuddles, kisses, smiles. Her cries—yes, precious, when you’ve been missing her for hours. The soft sound of her breathing as she falls asleep on my shoulder and the warmth of her rosy cheeks. As I type, she’s dozing in the crook of my arm. My right hand can barely reach the keyboard, but it’s more than alright.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member