you are my sunshine

On the morning of your first birthday we were squeezed into a room at the Sheraton just outside of Boston. Five of us in one room. It was Thursday and we’d been there since Monday. Same routine each morning. Big Brother and your dad wake up at the same crack-of-dawn time, Big Sister and I stay in bed, me with a pillow over my head trying to buy time. You woke up shortly after the boys. I think you’ll be an early riser. You wake up a little foggy but you are all smiles in seconds. Every morning.

Big Sister crawls out of bed, and so I have to as well. I was the last one up but the first to tell you Happy Birthday. I can wake up on the morning of my own birthday and not realize what day it is, but with you it’s different. We are connected by a thread that has woven itself into me. It seems to work its way deeper into me with each passing moment; twisting and winding its way into my vessels, into my blood, into my organs, pushing aside other things because of its importance. I chalk random aches and pains up to the thread.

And it’s been a year now since I’ve entered into parenthood and it still feels stiff and new. Will it crease and wrinkle and soften over time like leather? Will it be comfortable like a second skin? Will it shrink and grow to fit me? Looking back it’s easy to think of what I would have tried to do better. I might not have opted for a C-section, I would have slept more at the hospital, I would have nursed you longer, spent more time on the floor with you, never given you formula, and admitted to my friends that I was in way over my head.

There are moments when I feel it’s just the two of us. Not days, just little bits of time when nothing can penetrate our circle. It makes me think of a scene I saw played out on a train to New York recently. A father was standing in line in the crowded dining cart and holding his son in his arms. The boy was maybe three. The line was long and people were hungry. The boy lifted his head from his father’s shoulder and sneezed. Snot hung in streams from his nose and he looked at his dad with wide eyes, seeking counsel. Without hesitation his dad said, “Just use my shirt.” The boy reached for a handful of his father’s shirt, wiped his nose, and returned to resting his head on his dad’s shoulder. The dad scooted ahead in line. That’s it. No glances around to see who was looking, to see if anyone approved or disapproved, no asking for a tissue. In that moment it was just the two of them.

I watched you sleep in the car on the way home from Boston. Your face is bigger and your lips are plump. You sleep with your arms folded and your hands tucked behind your head like your aunt did when she was a baby. Your mouth hangs open like mine when I sleep but you don’t snore. Yet.

When we took you to Walden Pond and I cried because it was so overwhelming, you looked pensive.

You love having a bath and I’ve never seen you look so adorable as you do when you’re wet and wrapped in a towel. You love having your teeth brushed and when we clean out your ears, your eyes roll back into your head. Tonight after dinner we smelled your cheeks and they smelled like curry.

Your toes are still twisted.


You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I love you so much that I can’t and won’t squeeze this part into words.

Happy birthday baby.