Storing it Away

I am trying to make myself remember these perfect times with my new daughter. I am often torn between just absorbing the moment with her doing something ridiculously precious, and running to grab the video/camera and watching it through a screen, but capturing it for all time.

As I recently told someone in an email, Firecracker has all but told us outright that sleeping at night is not her thing anymore. Yes, during the day she takes great naps, but only on me (in the Moby). And yes, she sleeps for a couple of hours at a time at night, but only next to me (and she does a lot of endless writhing routing even when full, keeping me up. Breastfeeding co-sleeping moms, you feel me, right?). But last night, she would only sleep on me (as in the Moby). So I "slept" - yes - sitting up, something I haven't done since I suffered from heartburn during late pregnancy. And yes, I'm starting to believe that the late stages of pregnancy are indeed preparation for the early stages of motherhood, except that there's really nothing that can actually prepare you for this kind of sleep deprivation.

But, when she awoke this morning, she stretched and yawned and stretched and made crazy animal noises and yawned until her eyes met mine and she broke into a huge smile, kicking her feet in excitement and flirtation. Nothing. NOTHING. Makes my heart feel the way it does when she looks at me like that.

Of late, I am reminded of my long-time absolute favorite poem, one that I always related to how I feel about my partner. But it has an even deeper meaning to me now, something I didn't know possible.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

E.E. Cummings