My baby girl is huge! All day, it’s her and me, at the park, at the shops, in the café, on the sofa, we’re partners in crime from dawn to dusk. Our days start bright and swathed in positivity and hope, hope of naps to be had, nursing to satisfy, and we tumble together, getting ever more chaotic, faster and louder into the evening, a giant snowball of smiles, coos, cries, nappies and bottles.
Her smiles are there for me in HD – I spend
time in awe of how beautiful and perfect she is, not wanting to break the spell
until she does. Her screams come in
surround sound, echoing through me like no noise ever has. I’m so aware of the way I am parenting her –
each action feels like it could have huge repercussions, on today, tonight and
way into the future. Am I feeding her
too much? Is she sleeping too
little? Anxieties and frustrations are a
part of each day too. Everything she
does is huge and intense and takes all of my effort and focus to understand and
respond to. I’m so trapped in our
bubble.
People tell me when we’re out to treasure
these precious moments while she’s still so tiny and young, and I look at them,
aghast at their misconceptions. My baby
girl is huge!
When my husband comes home, he takes her
into his arms, leaving me blinking and reeling from the day we’ve spent, unable
to convey to him with words even half of what went on. And when I see her curled on his chest,
blinking back at me, breathing the smells of his shirt – the smells of work,
and other adults, and cities, things that remind me of the life outside, and
things she’s never seen, I realise how tiny she really is. It gives me some perspective.
It teaches me the importance of putting her
down, stepping away and just looking at her, just for a few seconds each
day. My baby girl is tiny, and
everything she experiences is huge and intense.
But it doesn’t always need to be the same for me. When I appreciate this, I can do my job. I can have perspective where she can’t, I can
try to put away some of my anxieties, and I can soothe her from her chaos back
to calm.
