Cherish

I think when people tell you to cherish the tiny baby days because they go by so fast, what they're really saying is "Don't worry, don't fret, don't cry in the middle of the night feeling alone and hopeless and trying to salvage any bond you might have with your baby, because the screaming and the inconsolable colic and god knows what.. it will end. You will get your sweet, loving, smiling baby back and you will be a success, and it really does all go by so fast that one day it will just happen and you'll be sitting down on the sofa at 8 o'clock with your angel asleep and you'll eat your first hot meal in months and snuggle with your partner or check your blog reader in peace, and you may find then that you miss the days, mere weeks prior, when your baby needed you and only you, even when they were screaming without breathing and seemingly beyond repair, and you won't remember how it felt.. you'll know it felt horrible.. but you won't remember just how, and you'll realize then that that time.. that teeny tiny wrinkly warm skinny legged little baby time is fleeting. Ever so fleeting, and you'll miss it, and no matter how you thought you failed, you actually did ok, and you needn't have worried. Because upstairs, the baby you love deeper than anyone else could is fine, and even, should the smiles first thing in the morning and at every diaper change and splash of the bathwater mean a thing at all, starting to love you back.

(4 day old Eliza. Broken heart soup.)