I'm In Love...

Noie just turned three-months-old on Easter Sunday. Three months may not seem like a very long time, but I honestly can't remember what it felt like without her in my life. Our little family just feels all the more complete with sweet little Anjali in it.

I barely remember what it felt like to be like this...



Taken 1/23/11 @ 11:17pm -- just before we left for the hospital

 It's hard to imagine there's a tiny person in there, isn't it? That the curve of my belly actually follows the sweet curve a teeny, tiny back. Motherhood is surreal in that sense, I suppose.  Two separate human beings are one for an extraordinary moment in time. Sometimes I forget that the tiny fingers I kiss with my lips are the same fingers that once tickled my insides not too long ago. I guess I never really appreciated that concept until Anjali was born.



Taken just seconds after she was born.

 Noie is quite possibly the first newborn that I've ever truly had the opportunity to appreciate. Now, before you think I'm a bad mother for admitting this, let me explain. I turned 21-years-old the day Kevin was born which means I was very young and naive. I was so overwhelmed with adapting to motherhood that I never really got to fully absorb the beauty of those first few days with my first son. When Anthony was born just 25 months later, I was distracted by trying to learn how to care for two cubbies instead of one. My Ethan was only home for a few short days and then he was gone. And lastly, Niki was in the NICU for several weeks after she was born so I didn't have much time alone with her.

I really didn't have the time to absorb it all.

Maybe it's because I'm little older and more mature now. Or maybe it's just a culmination of everything that has happened in the past three years. Or perhaps it's even because she looks so much like Ethan. Whatever it is, Noie's birth has made me appreciate motherhood on a whole different level. It has finally dawned on me that motherhood isn't only about doing, but it's about feeling, too. I'm more conscious of sensations and marveling at things like never before.

This must be what it's like to see the world with new eyes. To feel the world with new skin. To smell the world with new senses. To trust the world with a new heart.

This is what complete trust looks like...

This is what our family has become...

This precious girl is ours...

It feels like nothing else exists when she's sleeping on my chest. I'm at total peace when her downy hair caresses my cheek while I breathe in the delicate, rythmic puffs of her breath. It makes my heart melt.

Words can't describe how beautiful motherhood is, but this slide show comes pretty close to how wonderful it feels to have Noie in my life. The photos were taken by Kim of Super Kimagery. She's a such a talented photographer, and I highly recommend her newborn session if you live here in the Bay Area. (Thank you Kim for capturing such a special moment and for sharing a song that I now consider part of the "soundtrack of my life.")

I wish I could embed this slide show, but please do click the link below. I hope that every mother has the chance to fall in love with their baby as much as I have with mine.

www.superkimagery.com/noie

God is good.