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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Michigan
Posts: 3,785
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To Reagan, at 3 mos.
I am amazed that just 3 months ago, you came from my body. I recall that the last contractions and pushes seemed nearly unbearable, but then they were over, and were here, and I have forgotten the fear and panic that I could not continue--the fact was , I did not have to continue--I was done.
I was more than ever amazed at the process, as I still am. You have grown so that you are hardly recognizable as the babe I cradled against my chest, wet and naked and new. Your tiny squeaks have changed to squeals and coos.
You are smiliest in the morning. You greet us all after our sleep with grins and coos that make us all feel special.
You have had little crescent marks and bumps on your lower gums since birth, making me think that teeth are going to emerge any minute. None have yet.
Your eyes have turned from a dark, fuzzy blue to a deep, reflective brown. I do not know yet whether they will stay brown, or be brown-hazel, like your sister's .
You have grown so much that I have to remind myself that you are still a tiny baby, as I have had to do with all of my children, as I still have to do with them.
You often still when you hear music playing. At night, if I turn off the lights and leave the TV on, you watch the changing light on my face as you nurse.
You have taught me more about being a mom, just when I thought I knew all about being a mom to babies. You cried a lot , and were not easily consoled from 2-6 weeks. I do not know if it was something wrong, or if I just hadn't learned what you needed. You preferred not to nurse to sleep, but to nurse and then be walked, held upright, head resting next to my neck and on my shoulder. i think I will forever remember it as "Reagan's spot." You did not like the sling. I thought I would just nurse you and stick you in the sling, and you'd be happy. You didn't care to be put down, even in sleep. You still don't. Some days, I feel like I've spent the whole day trying to put you down. I remember thinking the same thing with Molly. More often, though, I give up and hold you, knowing that by the time you are 6-8 mos. old, you will be fussing to be put down rather than picked up. I hold you and touch your soft skin, squeeze your squishy little legs, hug you tight, for I know you won't be little like this for long.
You are already changing, growing to like the sling, nursing to sleep more often.
You have cried, already, more than I would like. I guess that comes from being the youngest of four. Sometimes, when I am distracted and you have allowed me to lay you down for a nap, one of your sibs will hear you before me and try to take care of you. It usually doesn't work, and you are yelling loudly and I come to find one of them patting your head and talking to you as you cry.
They love you dearly, giving you kisses and hugs and singing and talking to you. Sometimes they forget I am holding you, pushing toward you and elbowing or bumping me to get closer to you.
You are amazing. We have so much to learn about you and from you, and I am so excited to see you grow and develop and change. At the same time, I grieve that you will never be the tiny baby that you were again, that those brief moments with Reagan as a tiny newborn are already over, and that you are changing and growing into new things every moment. So, I am trying so hard to be here and remember you like this, but I already know, because I've done it three times before, that it still goes by so fast.
Still that is what makes it so precious and special. And, it reminds me that not only these moments while you are a baby but those moments in the third year and the fifth year and the eight year are just as precious and fleeting, and I have to work to be present for them with you and your siblings. You have reminded me of that.
Last edited by Kbsmama : 04-12-2007 at 11:39 AM.
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Jody
Christina wife to a US Marine
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