Crying baby

You're a baby and you cry. It's no surprise.

But there are so many things about hearing each of you cry as infants--moving me through the first moments, days, weeks, and months of life with a baby.

I held my breath as you were delivered, waiting for that first cry, then exhaled relief and overwhelming gratitude when I heard it.

Your hunger cries came into my dreams and woke me, with a warm rush, for our late night meetings.

The cries of discomfort, when not quickly calmed, became loud and shrill, ear-piercing, heartwrenching, spirit-shattering wails that sometimes left me in tears, questioning whether I was really going to be able to handle being a mother (of a child, or two, three, or four children).

Eventually these cries all give way to cries of delight, squeals, and laughter. Jabbering, sounds, and words will replace what was once just a lot of crying. I know that when your first birthday comes, most of this crying we do in the early days will be a vague and distant memory for me and you will have no recollection of it at all.

So soft

"She's so soft," he says as he gently strokes her cheek, and hair, and hands. "Why is she so soft? I'm not so soft. Annie is still soft and Mackenzie is a little soft, but I'm not very soft."

"She's still very new. Her skin is new and hasn't been changed or damaged by the sun or swimming pool or other stuff in the environment."

"I like how soft she is," he says, his six-year-old voice almost a whisper.

Me, too. I know that it won't last, this softness, this tenderness, this sensitivity to every sort of stimulation.

It is the nature of our world; the nature of life; the nature of experience.

Over time we lose our "softness". We lose our sensitivity. We become more rough, more hardened, and it changes us.

I silently pray again to be a little more like my children...to view the world with simplicity, to hear and receive God's word without doubt, to love with abandon, to laugh uncontrollably, to dance any time and any place just for pure joy, to hug with all my might, and to forgive quickly without long-term recall of wrongs committed against me.

I want to regain, or maintain, some of the softness.