All Good Things

Baby Girl,

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a new phase of our lives: my return to work. Right now you are asleep in your dad's arms, the way you slept in my arms this afternoon, the way you slept in my arms so many afternoons in the last 12 weeks. But today's nap was different. Today, rather than using the time to catch up on my TV shows, I sat and watched you sleep instead. You already look like such a big girl compared to the first naps you took in my arms. You have already grown so much, changed so much. And I was there to witness every moment of it.

Staying home with you these last 12 weeks has been the most challenging, wonderful thing I have ever experienced. In the beginning, there were days I thought I would lose my mind. I didn't know what to do with you. I felt like the walls of our house were closing in on me. Your dad would come home to both of us crying. But as you got older and as I got used to being a mom, our time together started smoothing out. I learned how to structure our day so that neither of us went crazy with boredom. We got into a routine, a steady waltz of nursing, play mats, swings, books, walks, songs, tummy time, bicycle legs, and, of course, napping. The first naps in my arms drove me crazy, contributed to my feelings of being unable to do anything at all. But then as you started to nap more and more on your own, I began to relish the one or two naps a day when I held you. By the end of our 12 weeks, by today, it has become my favorite part of the day. It is a frozen moment, a moment when the world stops, when you aren't aging, when time isn't moving forward, a moment, a snapshot, of your perfect little baby form held in my loving, protective arms.

But now everything is, once again, going to change. I am going back to work. You are staying home for a few more weeks with your dad and your grandparents, but then you will start going to day care. It is so hard for me to think of you in a room with other babies, other kids who will be loud and need attention, others who will prevent you from getting the 100% constant attention you will have gotten to that point. They won't know how to bounce you at the right tempo when you cry, they won't know the songs I sing you, they won't know the precise way I sing to you, then hum, then shush, as we walk around the house, you tightly wrapped in your warm fuzzy blanket, drifting off to sleep as I pat your cute little bottom in time with my bouncy steps in order to help you nap. I know they will have their own magical ways of soothing you--they wouldn't be in that profession if they didn't--but you and I have grown into quite the pair, and we know each other and respond to each other in a way that others just can't match. A way that we've honed these last 12 weeks. A way that both serves and comforts us both.

But now you will have to be taken care of by others. And it breaks my heart. It's not that I don't think they can--it's that you take care of me just as much as I take care of you. Your smiles, your squeals, your bubbles, your kicks, your brilliant, bright, inquisitive, expressive eyes . . . they are the manna that my soul subsists on day in and day out. Going back to a day filled with other adults, and computers, and meetings, and real, actual, not-baby-related work will be like going from the sweetest feast of fruits to a diet of cardboard. How am I going to make it through the day without talking to you, without laughing with you . . . without you sleeping in my arms?

So today, while you slept, I watched you. I watched you dream. I watched your sleep smiles. I watched you and thought of our 12 weeks together. I relived each week, remembering the hard times, remembering the adjustments, remembering each new discovery I witnessed you make, remembering how wildly happy you have made me, how wildly happy you continue to make me, how much vibrancy and warmth and fulfillment you have brought to my life. I took our 12 weeks and wrapped them around us like a blanket, breathing them in, tasting them, feeling each thread against my skin.

Even though today marked the end, and tomorrow marks a new beginning, even though life moves on, inexorably . . . I can say that I LIVED our 12 weeks, that I appreciated every second of our time together. I will never look back and think about how fast it flew by, how it was gone before I even had a chance to enjoy it.

I lived it. Each and every moment. I appreciated it. Each and every moment. I didn't take one second for granted.

Thank you for the gift of these last 12 weeks.

And here's to us finding our new rhythm, our new dance. I know the song will change, but thankfully our partner will not.

With everlasting love,
Mom