That lump.

One of the days we were in Florida, my older three girls and I drove to the beach and Nana took care of Matilda. She took a bottle and everything. At one point in the day, Donna grabbed her camera and shot these photos of my beautiful baby's face. I love them, I can see the way she looks at her Nana. She knows her already.


I wake up every morning and think about how beautiful Matilda is. I think about her now as she's sleeping in her crib, only a few walls away from where I sit. Her warmth, her smell, her tiny squishy nose, everything about her is ravishing.

She sounds like a kitty. She has a high pitched little cry that she does when she complains. It sounds like a joke, like she's faking it. Cold wet drool comes from her rosy lips every ten seconds, falling, plunk.... plunk.... onto her shirt or my arm.

How does anyone stop having these babies? HOW? Miraculous doesn't cut it. Amazing, life-changing, shockingly wonderful... those scratch the surface.

Is this really how women have felt always? For years upon years upon years about their own babies? Has there really been this much love in the world?

I wonder if other mothers put their cheek up to their babies cheek and stare into the mirror at the reflection. I wonder if they think the same things I do, that she looks a little like me, she'll be a mother like me someday, she'll wonder how much I loved her, she'll wonder how much I stared.

Do other mothers get that lump? The one that shows up between an aching back and putting away laundry. When the sheer speed of time hits them smack in the throat and makes their eyes well up with tears when they think about how their newborn's skin is changing. Changing into something 3 months old, which will turn into something wonderfully 6 months old, which will be on her way to being a toddler.

What will I remember about this time? What will I take with me?

Time, time, time.