Thankfulness

I have discovered how it happens that second children get born. Right around now, babies get so adorable that you forget all the earlier, harder times and suddenly want to have more.

I think I may objectively say that right now E is about the cutest she’s ever been in her life. She’s just the right amount of chubby: not enough to be overly plump but enough to have plenty of softness to kiss. Her cheeks remind me of silken tofu. Her limbs are just active enough to be interesting, but not so out of control as to be bothersome. She can sit up in a baby chair on her own, but not crawl everywhere yet. She’s wonderfully expressive and responsive, grinning and squealing when she sees us, laughing out loud when we tickle her. When D comes home, she beams and beams, smiling and squealing, clasping her hands to her mouth and punching out her belly.

The things that made life harder when she was younger are mostly a thing of the past: she goes to sleep quietly, takes a pacifier but isn’t addicted to it, is quiet when we go out and even when exhausted rarely makes a fuss. I can’t even believe I just wrote that.

Best of all, she is happier at daycare, now the sick season is over and perhaps now she’s older. She sits in the book box flipping through books, plays in paint, eats her food, occasionally even throws in a longer nap. And I get the sense folks there adore her, are getting used to how she communicates, which eases my mind. I spend pretty much every other available waking moment with her, sometimes even toting her to grand rounds so we can hang out longer. Perhaps it’s our time apart that makes those together more poignant. I feel able to truly be present with her when I can be.

I am deeply grateful for these things, in the way one is grateful for sun after a long rain, or the first robin of spring. I realize these things aren’t necessary for my happiness or a result of anything I did, but in it I sense God’s grace to us, and I am grateful.