Life with Clairvaux

I took a nap with you today and woke up way before you. Every time I had the urge to get up and leave you peacefully asleep, I couldn't. I wanted to stare. So, I did. I don't want to miss a thing. I love your little fists up near your face when you sleep.

As always for me after a baby, I am so emotional. I cry about everything namely you, my worries for and about you, my INTENSE love for you already, my grief of the pregnancy being over, my elation about getting to have a new baby in the house.

I thought today how wonderful it is to have a BABY in the house. More, I thought how wonderful it is to hear the word BABY from people who ask about you, to people who stop by, to all the wonderful times I say it during the day. "Please don't wake the BABY." "Can I hold the BABY?" "Do you need to nurse the BABY?" I have always loved babies.

I still sit and hold you all the time. I let everything else go. At night, I cannot put you down. Your father said the other night (joking), "You hold her too much!" I can never hold you enough.

You already know me and are INSTANTLY comforted by my voice and touch. I love it and am pridefully proud of it. Your siblings always ask, "How does she know it is you?" We've known each other for some time now. I feel the same way about you.


You are 3 whole weeks today. You need to stop that. Stop changing everyday.

Tiny, little feet. I cannot ever grasp baby feet. So tiny and sweet. There is something very special about children's hands and feet. I look at all my children's hands and feet often and it is often a measurement of how each of you are growing. I hold them up to mine.


I have an odd habit the first months after a baby of constantly walking by a mirror to see if you are still scrunchie small. You know, the kind of small that a newborn does when the tuck their buns way up high. The kind of small that when you hold them up, they pull their darling little legs up. The kind of small that is floppy and so fun to hold and put up right near your neck and they just flop over. I love it.

Your eyes are intense with so much to say. You make great eye contact and we look at each other a lot. Please tell me all you know.