Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Still my baby

Out for a walk after lunch, she tripped on a crack and skidded into the sidewalk. Wailing, she demanded that "Mama hold the me" so I scooped her up and she wrapped her arms and legs around me like a monkey.

At home, she cried over the antiseptic spray - "No poly! No poly!" - and kept crying even while declaring that "bandaid make boo-boo much better."

I sat on the edge of my bed and held her, and suddenly she found that spot on my shoulder that she loved as an infant. She curled up tight as a bug, still able to snuggle against me, despite her dangling limbs.

Her cries turned to gulps, then shudders as she drifted into sleep. I pushed myself back into a pile of pillows, and she burrowed even deeper into my chest. Slept.

The same weight of my baby, bigger now. My body still able to offer her comfort, help her drift into sleep.

I couldn't move. I didn't want to.

I wished someone was there to capture this moment in a photograph.

Squinting at our reflections in the closet mirrors, it looked almost the way I remembered.

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