Remind Me Why I Love My Child

Today's been one of those days. You know the days I mean, where the child is a whingeing, moaning machine who shreds your last nerve. Of course, just after that she'll do something lovely that reminds you that you really love her. I wrote this a few weeks after my daughter was born. She's now three - and it's still true.

Gratitude
Thank you for every wispy, barely-there hair on her fragile skull
Thank you for her questing hands,
ever stronger with longer and longer reach,
that try to touch the world and bring it to her
(usually to her mouth).

Thank you for her sturdy legs and feet
now planted to get a taller perspective on the world.

Thank you for her bright eyes, rosebud lips,
her eagerness to grasp and feel and taste
and know the world that daily expands around her.

Thank you for her skin,
especially those spots on her neck and belly
that distil that special blend of softness
and johnsons-baby-washedness that is the essence of babydom.

Thank you for the very selfness of her self,
the parts of us now parts of her,
the fizz in her eye,
the ready smile,
the chuckle deep in her throat when she’s really amused,
often by something small.

Thank you for all that she is and will become.
Thank you for my child.

© Sharon Hurley Hall