thoughts on the firstborn.

You were such a fun baby. Our first precious boy, delightful in every way... we still look at you and sigh a little while our chests puff with pride.

I remember your first year wistfully, painfully. I want it back sometimes but it cannot be so, and in the place in my heart where I'm always honest with myself, I'm okay with that because it's the way things are. But sometimes I flip through the memory book, pause at a page, hold it between my thumb and index finger:


















Every time you woke from your nap, you wanted to cuddle. For a long time. (Do you know I'd peek in on you half a dozen times while you slept, excitedly anticipating when you'd awake again? I should have been doing the dishes or catching up on laundry -or sleep!) Eventually I would hear your little voice happy-babbling from your crib and when I appeared in the doorway, you would bounce on those chubby legs until I came and lifted you out. And we would snuggle on the glider rocker until you had soaked up enough Mama-love to get you through a few hours of concentrated banana-eating and toy-scattering.

After you blew out the candles on your first birthday cupcake, Daddy replaced me as the apple of your eye. Every morning you wake and stand at your door: "Daaaaaaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyyyy!" And if I come get you? "Noooo! Where's Daddy?!"

But this afternoon, I snuck up and laid next to you while you napped and minutes later the ruckus from downstairs stirred you and a single eye popped open. The eye beheld the mama and you tensed away from me and mumbled something; I was sure you asked for your father. "You want Daddy?" I asked resignedly. You peered at me for a moment longer and closed your eye, shook your head. Mama was okay.


















Your brothers crashed our special moment and Daddy whisked them away, but not before they'd jumped on your head and screamed from the floor, respectively. As their collective noise faded down the hallway, you realized you had rolled away from me and scootched closer, closer, until you were satisfied we were adequately snuggled. And I soaked every moment up, because I sense the day coming soon when such affection comes less frequently, and I'm okay with that because it's the way things are. For now, though, we step between those lines and I get to hold my first baby again.