The Planets Bend Between Us

I know I haven’t updated photos of Sam in like, a month, but I swear it’s not because I haven’t taken them, it’s because a) I can’t find the damn photo uploader thing; and b) at the moment, the camera is in the bedroom, and would YOU go in there and wake her up to get it? I didn’t think so.

It’s a shame, really, because she’s damn cute. I think that’s one of the Unspoken Worries of parents (or, in some cases, spoken, as I’ve totally said it): that our kids won’t be cute, or that we’ll have ugly kids and we won’t know it and people will be mocking us and … oh, God, this sounds so stupid, and let me say that it wasn’t like TOP OF MY LIST OF FEARS or anything, but it did linger there under the litany of things like “healthy” and “has all important parts.”

What’s interesting about this is that for starters, *I* have the most beautiful baby in the world, and no, I cannot be convinced otherwise. Also, she could be hideous, and I wouldn’t know, nor would I care. But I’m pretty sure she IS beautiful, so there’s that.

Besides all the other stuff going on, I think what’s missing is talking about the good, and I just don’t say it enough. At least once a day, although usually along the lines of a thousand times, I scoop her up and cover her with kisses until she laughs so hard she can’t see, because I just can’t believe this little girl is mine. She’s starting to develop a sense of humor about things and figuring out what she finds funny is my favorite thing in the whole world, hands down.

And the situation that led to the co-sleeping, for all its sleepless drawbacks, gives me these unbelievable moments with her in the middle of the night, when I wake up with my face mere inches from hers and watch her little lips gently move up and down as she sucks on her tongue. God, I wouldn’t have missed that for the world, honestly. In the mornings, when she wakes up with her face puffy from sleep, she lets out a grin that will light up your whole life, just before pulling her feet in the air and proudly ripping the loudest farts in the world, right in my face, smiling brighter than the sun the whole time.

It’s not like I couldn’t imagine parental love before, or that I think that people who haven’t had kids don’t know love, blah blah blah, but I AM constantly surprised by how much I love her. Sometimes it’s a physical need so strong that I have to touch her — I have to pick her up and kiss her and hold her just tightly enough to satisfy me, but not as tightly as I want to, which, quite frankly, would probably break her.

Throughout all of this, I am, mercifully, acutely aware of how fast it’s all going, and that one day, she won’t need me so much anymore, and that I’ll look back and be willing to give anything for one more night with her snuggled up against me, and one more morning waking up to her noxious, noxious farts. I know this, and it’s what gets me through every single day. You never know when the last time of anything will be, because they grow so fast and furious, the next stage is here before you can even blink. When I think about it, my whole body aches and I miss her already. I want to freeze time; to tell her to stop growing up already, it’s going too fast. Please, baby girl, don’t leave me.

So, you know, for all of this shit, for all the days I’ve cried because I’m just so goddamn TIRED and would give anything for another five more minutes of sleep, I’m … well, I’m not sure I would do anything differently. I don’t know what, if anything, I would change about right now, because any change — even in her sleep patterns — might have sent us on a slightly different path, and oh, I would have missed so much, even the hardest of hard stuff. Oh, you guys. This baby. This little girl. I love her so.

And with that, I’m going to bed with my girl. Because really, before you know it, I won’t get to do that anymore.

Have a great Thursday, y’all.

*Snow Patrol

32 comments June 17th, 2009