Babies Don't Keep

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing

will wait till tomorrow,

but children grow up,

as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs.

dust go to sleep

I'm rocking my baby

Babies don't keep.

-Ruth Hulbert Hamilton, 1958

It could have been something else that woke me, but very early this morning my eyes opened to my wee one having the hiccups. I laid in bed for a moment and silently laughed at my belly going up and down. I slipped out of my warm quilt and went to sit in Paul's office chair. We don't have a rocking chair yet, but I am thinking that we need to invest in one soon. For now, Paul's study chair will have to do. I sat and drank hot chocolate and rocked my baby out of the hiccups. I was surprised how naturally this answer came to me, because I have been panicking about how I'm going to know what to do when baby is here and crying. We rocked and I spoke to baby about all of my hopes I have for our little family. Though baby and I are obviously together at all times, this is the first time I felt a bonding moment with baby. You might be shocked that this hasn't happened before now - but being pregnant is very foreign to me and it has taken me these six months to really grow used to the idea. Of course, I have loved this child since the day I took a home pregnancy test. No, since before that even. But sharing this moment with my baby made me weep and I am not ashamed. Everything makes me cry nowadays, but this cry was from deep within me and I'm not sure I'll ever surface from the devotion that struck me so poignantly last night.

The top of baby's head, where I'm sure many kisses will be planted.

"Sometimes it is the littlest things that take up the most room in your heart."

-Winnie the Pooh