Twenty-seven years ago today, I gave birth to my first child, a blue-eyed eight-pound bundle of baby that kept me awake at night and on high alert forever after. Once a child comes into a woman's life, she is forever changed.
Well, I was certainly changed. Only twenty when I had her, she and I, really, grew up together. She was my living baby doll: I was forever changing her clothes and giving her baths, rubbing baby lotion into the chubby folds of her arms and legs, her "pork chop" thighs, taking her lacy socks off constantly, to wiggle her baby toes, to sniff her feet, an odor sweet and talcum-y.
We went everywhere together, talked whenever we were awake, sang silly songs and made up new ones just because we could.
And now she is twenty-seven years old. I don't feel old enough to have a child who is closer to thirty than twenty.
She and I are still growing up together. When one of us comes across something wonderful, or witty, or frustrating, or confusing, we share, rushing in to tell the other.
What a privilege it has been to be this child's mother. Momma Bean, she calls me, referring to my love for All Things Coffee.
A privilege indeed. She is my heart.
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