August 07, 2005

16 days

Mia,

The last 16 days have thrown my life into complete chaos - the kind of chaos I cannot believe I ever lived without. These are the things I want to remember from the first days of your life.

You are unclear on the concept of hands and most often use yours to smack yourself in the face. When you were four days old, you accidentally discovered that your fingers fit up your nose. You were not at all happy with the discovery. You seem most content when breastfeeding with both of your hands pressed against your cheeks.

You have long dark hairs on your earlobes and ankles and most of your forehead. These will go away eventually, but I will miss the little hairs on your ears. You have an amazing amount of dark brown hair. It was the first thing I noticed the first time I saw you, and the first thing that made you seem like a real person to me.

You have small red birthmarks in the divot of your upper lip, the right side of your nose, and right between your eyebrows. Your nose and bottom lip are squished to one side from being stuck up under my ribs for so long. They are straightening out, but when you are sleeping I can tell when you are really out because your bottom lip flops way over to the side.

You are using your legs a lot more in the last week and are more willing to let us touch and move them. For the first week or so, you kept them scrunched at the knee and splayed at the hip and screamed if anyone tried to move them.

You only cry when you are hungry. Sometimes, your father and I are stupid and try to figure out another reason why you are crying. There is never another reason. Even if you just finished an hour-long meal, if you are crying, you are hungry. You seem to prefer dirty diapers to clean ones and solve any gas problems on your own by spitting up huge amounts of milk and then crying for more.

When you eat, you like to pretend that you are asleep until you get close enough to make a huge grunting noise and dive bomb the breast so you can latch on with your mouth open as little as possible. When I pull you off to try again or try to open your mouth a little wider, you look at me like you can't believe the cheek that would cause me to try such a thing. You tend to zone out while eating, and when I move you to burp you there is often a stream of milk running down your cheek that you are just too sleepy to swallow.

You don't flinch when I put your entire foot in my mouth, or when I give you Eskimo kisses or when I accidentally poke you in the eye. You like to have your head rubbed, the same way I rubbed it all those times before you were born. The skin of your belly is the softest thing I have ever felt in my life.

You snore.

You are so beautiful that every time I look at you it is all I can do not to burst into tears.

Mama loves you, Mia. Never have any doubt.

Posted by Beth at August 7, 2005 03:15 PM
Comments

wow. that made me want to cry, it was so beautiful.
as 3rd out of 4 children, my baby book is a bit lacking, so i am jealous of mia for having all those lovely things you felt on record.

Posted by: phoebe at August 7, 2005 04:45 PM

That tugged on the auld heartstrings so it did. So recognizable. Mia is a very fortunate young lady.


Oh, and don't worry, before you know it (well, it will seem long but in hind-sight it will be the bat of an eye) you will be checking her breathing because you will realize you have been sleeping for 5.5 hours without her stirring. And yes, it will be devine!

Enjoy parenthood, going by your blog(s) you will do absolutely great.

Posted by: Nynke at August 7, 2005 04:58 PM

wow, how beautiful, it sounds like being a mother is wonderful.

Posted by: Adi at August 7, 2005 05:24 PM

That was the sweetest thing ever! She is going to love reading your memories when she grows up. So are you :)

Posted by: Eulallia at August 7, 2005 07:24 PM

wow, that made me tear up. thank you for writing, i love this new era of entries. congratulations to all three of you (again.)

Posted by: kate at August 7, 2005 08:08 PM

Awwww, Mia loves you just as much as you love her. Remember that when shes 16.

Posted by: Angelia at August 7, 2005 08:10 PM

Tonight, my fiance was cooking dinner when I read this post to him, and we stopped to laugh together about putting baby feet in mouths, baby snores and poopy diapers.

We have agreed that whenever we decide to have kids, we will write fun things like this for our kid(s) and create fabulous baby books that our parents failed to.

Truly inspirational.

Posted by: Emily at August 7, 2005 08:10 PM

Wow, talk about a tear jerker! Mia is a lucky little lady. :) It sounds like you're definitely enjoying every precious moment of this experience. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Posted by: LaLa Lisa at August 7, 2005 08:49 PM

oh, so SWEET. ;) this is a total adventure, isn't it? how cool. thanks for taking time to share. :)

Posted by: Sarcomical at August 7, 2005 09:16 PM

precious :)

Posted by: tiffanie at August 7, 2005 09:45 PM

I am all besot with tears.

Even though I'm sure I used that word wrong and totally misspelled it...

Mia is so beautiful. You guys are going to be *fabulous* parents. What am I saying? You already are! :)

Posted by: Rhonda at August 7, 2005 09:53 PM

10 months later and I still hold back tears when I look at my daughter and realize how wonderful she is. You wrote exactly how I felt and feel - isn't this motherhood thing pretty cool?

Posted by: samlamb at August 7, 2005 10:08 PM

that's so sweet. it's wonderful that you can share this with us.

Posted by: Jessica at August 7, 2005 11:05 PM

And when Mia get's old enough to read she is going to freak out if she sees this!

She is beautiful, congratulations, again.

Posted by: Jeff A at August 8, 2005 01:49 AM

Awwww *sniff* I'm at work, don't make my cry! :)

Posted by: Sweety at August 8, 2005 02:42 AM

This was beautifully written. It makes me miss those baby days. They go so fast, but they are so wonderful.

Posted by: Nicole at August 8, 2005 08:02 AM

Oh my...motherhood 'looks' good on you.

Posted by: Snapper at August 8, 2005 08:24 AM

Okay, if you keep up all this wonderful loving mushiness, you're going to have to display a 'cry-o-meter' at the top of your posts.

I'm glad you wrote down those precious things that shouldn't be forgotten - what a great Mom you are, Beth!!

Posted by: samantha at August 8, 2005 08:38 AM

Awww - this makes me want to be a total biter and write a letter to Sierra. Congratulations again - I hope that Mia NEVER gets colicky.

Posted by: Marie at August 8, 2005 09:05 AM

Much love for that entry. How can things that are so disgusting (spit up, diapers) be so special?

Posted by: verucaamish at August 8, 2005 10:13 AM

And that is why the pains and "inconveniences" of pregnancy are SO worth it! Thank you for reminding me.

Posted by: Irene at August 8, 2005 10:24 AM

How sweet. It is fun to stick a baby's entire foot in your mouth--mostly I like to eat-up my baby's belly. She scrunches all up :-)

Posted by: Ginny at August 8, 2005 10:47 AM

See? That is why no matter how much you think you know about children, before you have them...you don't know.

This kind of love. It is from God.

Posted by: angela marie at August 8, 2005 11:01 AM

Being a mommy is the best thing in the world!

Posted by: Veronica at August 8, 2005 11:42 AM

Well, thanks so much for making me tear up at work. :-)

Posted by: ccap at August 8, 2005 11:54 AM

Awwww...I'm glad you guys have such a beautiful family!

Posted by: Queen of Ass at August 8, 2005 12:35 PM

Great post. It will be nice to remember all of these things when you jump to the next stage.

Posted by: Jazzy at August 8, 2005 01:05 PM

I know this is one of the main reasons I blog, so I make sure to get these moments and details recorded that I might never find the time or the room to record in their baby books.

This is beautiful Beth.

Posted by: sleepingmommy at August 8, 2005 01:25 PM

:::choked up:::

Posted by: bob at August 8, 2005 02:00 PM

oh, my throbbing ovaries! As if my baby lust wasn't already bad enough after those divine pics Chris posted yesterday!!!

Seriously, you reminded me again why I continue to cling to hope that we will have a child. Thank you for taking the time to put these precious words down for us. What a tremendous blessing you have given.

Love to you all,
erin

Posted by: erin at August 8, 2005 07:22 PM

how sweet :)

Posted by: suze at August 8, 2005 09:24 PM

ok, i so cried.

*hugs* Lady Beth. You are a beautiful mama!

Posted by: Tricia at August 8, 2005 10:52 PM

Brings back some wonderful memories... Enjoy every moment!

Posted by: Rhodent at August 8, 2005 11:19 PM

Enjoy every grunt, coo, burp, cry--it goes by so fast. Beautiful, truly beautiful.

Posted by: Michele at August 9, 2005 01:06 AM

Awww how sweet and adorable. Such beautiful descriptions Beth.

Posted by: Tammy at August 9, 2005 11:06 AM

Aw Beth! You sound just like a mom!

Posted by: Michele at August 9, 2005 12:55 PM

Beautiful! Just beautiful!

Posted by: jen at August 9, 2005 08:31 PM

you are my mom role model...meaning, that when the day comes that i pop out a tiny baby, i hope i treasure it just as much as you apparently are... that was very touching.

Posted by: lizabetty at August 9, 2005 09:06 PM

Beautiful.

Posted by: catbird at August 10, 2005 02:18 PM