Dear Ida Ruth,
Four months here and you continue to make it near impossible for me to live out of any other place then pure gratitude and contentment. Some how you continue to get sweeter and some how I keep falling even more in love with you. We all do. With your constant wet slobbery chin and chest, your wide open gummy smiles, your wild cat sounding laughs and squeals, your bashful grin when you meet someone's gaze, your frequently increasing need to be chattering and spitting and blowing bubbles during your waking hours and with all your 18 pounds of squish typically resting on my hip. You are such a delightful and peaceful baby.
So Ida, there is this certain space. And it's my favorite. It's a place I have occupied with all my babies, but with each one it's become more sacred, more treasured.
There's not a whole lot in my bedroom, but there's a lot that I love. A vanity that was my grandmother's, where lots of hair gets braided. Resting on a shelf above a long, short dresser is a wooden sign I painted for your Papa that says, 'We were together, I forget the rest'. Next to the sign sits a pitcher filled with dried Eucalyptus leaves I can still smell as I walk by. On top of a tall, narrow dresser, there's a jewelry box your Papa gave me our very first Christmas together. Next to that dresser is a rocking chair that was my other grandmother's and it sits facing the corner of the room next to my side of the bed, a bed with a beautiful headboard built by your Papa. Then there's a small wooden cradle tucked in the corner. No matter how infrequently you use it, it remains my favorite thing in the room.
At least once during the day, instead of nursing on the couch, sun room, back porch, or wherever else the beautiful chaos is going on, we slip into our room and close the door. I lay you in the middle of the bed and curl up next to you resting on my side. You usually giggle and roll onto your side facing me, full of anticipation because you know what's about to happen.
As you nurse, I sometimes close my eyes and rest. Thankful for either your sisters peacefully and contently playing or for your Papa who sometimes works from home.
Other times I simply take it all in...
The perfect fit of your little body curled into mine, the silky softness of the inside of your hand, the satisfied noises you make as you fill your belly with milk. I take in the peace of this room left simple and full of love and meaning. The way it fills with filtered sun light because of the covered porch off the side of the room that holds the windows. A large double window, framed with white linen. Through that window I see the umbrella of branches of a 30 year old cherry blossom tree, the swings it holds, the mud kitchen where your sisters spend the majority of their days, and I can see the turquoise fence of our garden just starting to be filled with new green for the summer. It's a bonus gift when I hear your Papa on the porch listening to music or your sisters giggling and swinging under their tree or creating forts in the azalea bushes.
Ida, your Papa and I have dreams and ideas for our growing family. And it might not always include this room or this view. So I'm going to keep soaking all of this in and sing thanks for every ounce of these days. For all my dreamer ways, one saying I've come to hold dear and true is that
the grass is greener where you water it. So those plans, goals, and dreams for the future, those are fine and they are fun. But it's these stolen moments with you that remind me that I have no complaints, it's the gentle shower watering the green of these days. I treasure this time, in this room, with walls that just so happen to be painted a color named, 'tranquility'.
Love,
Mama
