Lucidia Lohman

Four Months

I have no idea how it happened, but you are now four months old. Four. That’s many days and weeks old. Almost too many. (You’re really four months and four days old, but who’s counting?)

When you were born, I told your father that we have a new clock, a new way to tell time—and it’s terrifying because I wonder if I’ll always want to slow it down, rewind it, to just stop time for a moment and admire you. But then I think If you’re this cool now, imagine what it’s going to be like when I can have complete, coherent conversations with you. What can I learn from you?

You were a newborn once, I swear to you (and myself) that you were. You were 8 pounds, 6.6 ounces, and you were mushy and happy and serene. You’re now eating rice cereal, refusing any kind of formula, you love apple juice (just like I did when I was a kid), and smiling. Oh, those smiles. There is one smile, though, I have yet to photograph, and I doubt I’ll ever get to. You give it only to me. It’s the smile very few people in life ever get to experience, like the kind where a long-lost lover returns, and you smile because your world just brightened up. It’s a subconscious, instantaneous smile of recognition, I think. You give it to me when I come to get you in the middle of the night when you’re cooing over the monitor, conversing happily with shadows, or when we get ready to nurse. (That’s when you also do “big eyes” and make an “Oooh!” sound.) Please remember to give me that smile just once in awhile when you’re a teenager, ok? It’ll help me put things in context.

You have a new nickname now. Her Majesty. It’s so appropriate for you, because you’re no princess, but you’re not pushover either. You are direct in your demands, and we (your father and I) are more than willing to accommodate you and satisfy your every need.

You have no interest in rolling over at all, and I’m ok with that. You love tummy time. And your seahorse. And when I yelp “Mommy bear get baby bear. Go om nom nom nom nom” all over your belly, you squeal with delight and love and all sorts of bubbly, glittery states of being. You encompass them all.

You’re beautiful. People come up to Dad and I all the time and directly state how beautiful you are. You have no flaws. You are perfection physically manifested (as long as perfection is thigh rolls). And we are so proud to say we created you. (Never forget that I carried you. And I have the scar to prove it. There will be days when you are older in which I will subject you to the Maternal Guilt Cycle. My mother did it to me, and I’m sure in my impatience, I will do it to you, but I promise to try really hard to minimize it as much as possible.) You are the light of our lives, our joy, and the primary source of our pride.

We know you’re not ours, though. You’re yours. And we’ll never let you forget that.

And in return for all these gifts you’ve given us, we can only offer you our love, guidance, protection, and intellect in return. I hope this pleases Her Majesty.

I know I was born
and I know that I’ll die
The in between is mine
I am mine

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