Flying By

1 week

2 months

4 months

Babies grow.  Almost, if not more amazing, than birth itself.

You do new things every day, little Bear.  You hold your head far from my shoulder when I burp you, stretching to see what is new in the same corner you've been staring at since you were born.  Every day, it seems, you do find something new amidst all that sameness.  Or do you have a favorite thing you see?

Now your smiles are conversation.  You catch my eye and hold it, and smile like your Papa did when he was singling me out in a room.  We are old friends already, aren't we.

Let me always remember how you rest your hand on my hand, how you grab my wrist when I replace the fallen beep, how you flutter your eyelids with a secret smile when I tousle your glistening baby hair.

Sometimes you wake up bashful, blinking slow and grinning at the prospects of a new diaper.  Other times you cry so hard, and when you do I call you "Piggy" because that's exactly what you look like.  A tiny baby again - helpless, pink and hungry, with no faith that you will ever eat again.  Also, you are starting to understand that you are startled.  Ice into a cooler, the blender, the vacuum, and our deep, guttural laughs have all caused you to jerk around, wide-eyed, and then collapse into a wail with little lips curled down in the perfect pout.  Adults use that pout face to mock being sad, but you actually use it!  Who taught you that?

My first favorite is picking you up from a rosy-cheeked sleep, when you've been laying there in a happy zone.  Your hair is fuzzed up like a little ducky, and you will be more of a bobble-head than usual, until you re-find the control you've been working so hard on lately.  You feel so heavy after that good rest, and you land your bobbing cheek against mine.  I turn to the mirror to see you look at both of us, but smile only at me - the one you recognize.

My second favorite is when you're almost done nursing and you look up at me while your fingers find your mouth (also new, but quickly becoming common).  You look immediately fatter.  Your legs are curled up in my lap now, and I'm not thinking about position or latch or anything I was once supposed to.  You bounce your arm around languidly, no longer starving but not yet full.  Time out to smile at mama - just to be sure the world is still spinning and you're at the center, that I'm still here and happy to mimic all your new sounds back to you and return every lazy grin, like I have nothing better to do.

(Don't worry, baby.  I don't).