Friday, January 09, 2009

Baby Gazing

I feel as though my blog has come under serious neglect. Which is too bad, really, considering I received a fantastic new camera for Christmas, and have taken many more pictures lately. If only I had some type of hands-free baby-holding device that could also hands-free make dinner and wash the dishes, perhaps I could find my way back to this space more often.

Unfortunately (or, more aptly, fortunately), my days are taken with a little chubber, who I want to hold and snuggle and breathe in while I can, before he's off, chasing after bigger (cooler) brothers, busy playing and building and having a day of his own. For now, he's just mine, and he just wants to be mine, and I love it. As he emerges from his newborn grogginess, his eyes find my face, and his ears know my voice, and I am overwhelmed yet again by the primality of birthing a child, a piece of yourself torn away and made into a new person. He is fresh and clean, newfallen snow, and it's my job to both protect him from the world and to make him fall in love with it, all at once. And I spend my days looking at him, rubbing his belly or his head, washing him, nursing him, cooing and singing, patting, bouncing, but mostly looking. Just looking right into his eyes, letting him look back, recognizing him, learning him.

What I am not spending my days doing: cleaning. Dishes are piled high, there is hardly a square inch of clean counter space in the kitchen, and the bathrooms are all three beckoning for a major scrubdown. Laundry threatens, and the floors need a good vaccum. But I've chosen to indulge myself right now, with one more cup of coffee, and one more snuggle with that little newborn baby, before he outgrows and outruns me. It's so, so good.

1 comment:

Harris Family said...

If you consider your blog neglected, then mine is abanadoned!

--Heidi