NEWBORN
There’s a kind of newborn love which is utterly wild to me. The love arrives with the infant, taking up space in your heart you didn’t know was there. I stare at my baby in total adoration. I am enamored with everything about her. The tiny features. The tender nature of how delicate and needy she is, yet how quickly she is growing in size and movements. The coos, squeaks, and grunts. The smiles which are delighted by light and motion.
POSTPARTUM DIARY
Day 1: It’s a couple of hours after I’ve given birth. In the minutes following the delivery of my son, my breath came in ragged gulps. Seeing my baby for the first time, held aloft between my knees by the doctor, I cried with joy and relief while gasping for air after the great effort of pushing. As I held him to my chest, someone pressed firmly on my stomach until the placenta came out, the afterbirth, and finally I was covered and allowed to sit up. My baby latched onto my breast right away, and I marveled at the utterly new sensation of feeding a human – my son - from my body.
VARIATIONS
You’ve heard of goat yoga
a popular trend
For deep breaths and giggles
with downward dog bends
Well then let me share
what I learned of today!
Attempting pilates
while my seven-month played
OF LOVE AND IMPERFECTIONS
My baby slurped at his bottle with a commendable, if not alarming, focus and ferocity. One would think he hadn’t eaten in ages, when in actuality it was more like two hours. Towards the end of the bottle, his eyes fastened onto mine. He stared in the unabashed way of babies, then his face broke into a smile. I grinned back, my heart melting.
“What am I going to do, not smile back?” I teased.
