I can hardly believe it's been two months. Two months of sleeping when she sleeps, of round-the-clock hip sways and knee bounces. There's a growing pile of New Yorkers on the coffee table; I
haven't yet gotten around to putting up the Christmas lights outside; and, more often than not, there's spit up on my shoulder (just a little fromage, we say). Yet I
don't mind. I've spent whole days gazing at
our baby girl, and whole nights learning her cries. I'm amazed at how quickly the songs my father
sang to me as a child come to my lips now, and at how after becoming a
mother, I see my own mother so very differently. Maybe I even understand
why she had so many children. After all, the way Cecile smells as her head rests on my shoulder, the feel of her
barely-there hair brushing my cheek--there's no greater drug. I can't help but be so very aware of how special--and how fleeting--these moments are.
I love how a middle-of-the-night diaper change and a fresh glass of water can turn my husband into a war hero. I love that Cecile sneezes in the sunlight just as I do, and when she smiles she has dimples just as her father does. Others take turns attributing her features to different family members--blue eyes from her grandfather, long eyelashes like her uncle. But really, she's all mine. I am her mother and she is my daughter. When she gets the hiccups, which she often does, only I know what they felt like in utero. At 4 a.m., when Cecile cries out in the night, it is I that can
give her everything she wants. And while nursing her in the dark in our bed,
I, too, know that everything I need in the world is right there.
It's been a great eight weeks, my little C. Ever so looking forward to our adventures to come.
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