The day I waited for

"I have waited for today!"  I cheered and clapped, when, as my heart had predicted he would (though at the time I didn't even know he was a "he"), Jonah scootched (yes, that is a word.  Don't look it up, just trust me) over to the antique wooden bowl that sits on the floor in my living room and reached inside to pull out the woollen balls that I made for him when I was pregnant with him (I don't know if that was one whole sentence, or a flock of baby ones, but you get the idea!).  As I worked on them, I was trying to picture him here, in our lives, safe and sound, rolling on his yummy fat little belly. (that post here) 

And now, here he is. 

Playing with his balls (are you smiling, Steph?).

 Today I dozed on the couch and when I opened my eyes, he had put the balls into the bowl and would tip the bowl to make the balls roll around inside.  He would watch them roll in circles until they stopped, and then do it again.  It was wonderful. 

He is wonderful.

He is more wonderful than my finite flea-sized imagination could have conjured. I love his slobbery mouth, and the funny pucker-face he makes when he eats cold food.  I love the way he bellows in rhythm to the rocking chair
 as we rock when he is tired.  Oh, I-love-'im I-love-'im I-love-'im!

What a joy to be a mother!  What a gift to welcome giant spirits in tiny bodies, to share our bodies and our lives and our hearts with.  What miracle is this, that we are trusted with wee-human souls to teach and love, comfort and inspire? 

In the past, I have ached as each baby-day of my children's babyhoods sped by.  But I find myself, of late, far too overjoyed with him to feel the sting of the passing of days.  As I write this, he is gleefully slapping his reflection in the mirror
and laying big wet-ones on the baby face he sees there. 

And when I look beyond his reflection in the mirror,

I see my own

and I am smiling.