Dear Sprout,

Right now, it’s a little after 7 in the morning, and you’re sleeping peacefully in your crib and I’m wide awake because you wanted to nurse and now the sun is up. I’m sitting here in my easy chair snatching a few minutes of me time, before you or your daddy wake up and need me again. Then I hear you from across the quiet house, just one piercing cry, and I’m up to see if you’re really awake, or just having a bad dream. I find you laying there, eyes wide open, whimpering, and I smile down at you as I pick you up. “It’s ok, sweetie, mommy’s here.” I love the way you melt into my chest and your whimpers stop immediately, like just my presence makes all the bad things of this world go away.

I open the blinds to let what little sun there is on this rainy morning in your window, and together we go back out to my easy chair, where I cuddle you a minute longer, then settle you into your usual spot, propped up on the nursing pillow and my leg, so we can look at each other’s faces while I get a little work done for school. People tell me I’m going to regret holding you all the time like this, that you’re going to wind up spoiled and I’ll never be able to get anything done because you’ll want to be held all the time, but I think they’re crazy. I wouldn’t trade anything for these morning cuddles, your happy baby smiles, the total love and adoration I see in your big eyes, sometimes green, sometimes blue, sometimes silvery grey. I love to hear you talk to me in your sweet baby language of grunts and coos and breathy laughter. I know someday soon you won’t fit in your spot; you get bigger and bigger every day. So for right now, I’ll just sit here, and try to capture every second in my memory, for the days when you no longer want to cuddle with mommy in the morning.