Slices of Today

This morning proved that Arden is well on her way to healthy. Sometimes I wonder if we’re going to come out alive from the “Day Care Germ War.” I suppose we will. Every other family seems to, but right now I’m pretty sure there is going to be a little memorial for us all outside the day care door.


In fact I have a sneaking suspicion that I have conjunctivitis. Which means I have to get into my doctor today since I’m on my way to Chicago tomorrow….I can just see me blinking my cherry red eyes at the hospital staff tomorrow.


Anyhow…Proof of Arden’s returning health….She got up grinning and squealing….ordered Erin around during her diaper change and yelled at me to hurry up with breakfast.


Sooner or later she is going to realize that she can lift my shirt herself. That’s going to be fun (read much sarcasm here folks).


As I was nursing her today I noticed how big her hand has gotten.


Having watched all my cousins growing up the one thing I have been acutely aware of is how fast a baby grows and how fast your memory blurs. Many memories of cousins as babies are so hazy that I want to peel back the surface and dunk my head into them just to make sure they are real.


Being aware of this is a gift for a personality like mine. It has made me stop and live in the moment no matter what pressing detail of life or work was knocking to intrude.


In those first few months when I was bogged down by a hungry, nursing infant and the last thing my exhausted self wanted to do was sit down again and feed her, that awareness made me stop, sit there and revel in that moment.


Everything else would still exist, circling my head, needing my attention, but that slice of reality with Arden would only subsist in that very instant.


I know time will win again. Already much of our early days together swim in and out of focus. However, I wanted one part of Arden’s newborn days to remain sharp and alive. Something to hold onto when life has made me a relic and my greatest companion is the static of yesterdays. So when Arden was placed on my chest immediately after birth the first thing I did was wrap her hand around my thumb and memorize its size.


I didn’t want to forget how small her hand was.


Delicate and fine, her whole palm fit just over the top half of my thumb. Pink skin wafer thin and wrinkled, each joint pliable and yielding.


This morning sturdy little fingers grasped my thumb all on their own. While beautiful, gone is the delicacy of a newborn hand. The skin remains soft but the bones are covered with pudgy reserves of baby fat. This is a hand that grasps things and pulls things, pushes things and explores a world that seems to be hers for the taking.


This is the hand of a baby. As I looked at my thumb now completely swallowed by her palm I became acutely aware that my newborn lives in my memory and today I was cuddling my baby.


Already each day together adds a few new memories weighing down the ones from yesterday and sticking them together. It made me sit there staring at our joined hands, ignoring the news, ignoring the clock knowing the day would still march on no matter how long I stared into her eyes or reminisced about a delicate hand.


I did my best to slice a bit of this morning off and stow it in corner of my mind, the edges clear and focused, alive for another morning down the road when the now becomes the then and the present wallows as part of our past.