Ever growing, ever glowing

Baby Bird, you are a small baby for your age. Some days it is so easy to get caught up in your size by comparison to other babies your age, but secretly I love how tiny you are.

How bittersweet it is when you grow. Just this week, Daddy and I have noticed how suddenly your looks changed. The newborn you once were is no longer visible in your face. Now, instead, I see glimpses of the little boy you are swiftly becoming. I long to call out, "Slow down! Please, God, let him slow down," but I don't dare in fear you will be stricken with illness and stop growing for real.

You are still exclusively breastfed. Your Mama is ceaselessly proud of this. Now you are six months old, and whenever someone in the room starts eating, you stop what you are doing to stare. If you were nursing, you stop, in awe of the food. I know I won't be able to put off solid foods much longer, and I pray you still enjoy nursing for a long time to come. I won't be ready for you to wean for many months yet. While you nurse, I stare down at my own personal miracle. I examine your fingers; touch your soft, barely-there, hair; gaze lovingly at you while you return my gaze. On days when your reflux is not bothering you, you end your nursing by smiling sweetly and cooing up at me. My heart expands like a sponge in water, soaking up all of your love for me.

Soon you will outgrow your bouncy seat. In truth, you're probably ready to stop using it now. A pang of sadness hits me as I think about how tiny you were when you sat in it on your first day home from the hospital. Or when you reached up and made the toy froggy sing his song for the first time. Or how you were too small and too light to make the seat bounce for the longest time.

I am constantly needing to remind myself that it's okay for you to grow. Indeed, that is why we brought you into this work - for you to grow into a man whose qualities will be revealed to us in time. People keep reminding me to enjoy every moment of your fleeting infancy, but little do they know I need no reminding. I savour every second we spend together, from the first smile of the morning to the cry that means nobody but Mama will do.  The floors grow dusty and the clean flatwear develops rusty spots in the dishwasher. Meanwhile, you are smiling at me while I watch you play.  Some days it feels as though if I failed to watch you carefully, you might be a different child when I looked up again. Other days, it's as if you are growing in my arms by the second.