Covered in cheese, she came into the world in a mix of blood, water, and mystery. That is to say, she is elemental, and sublime.
She poops dark chocolate, chokes herself with spit, and shivers violently when she's cold, which doesn't take much.
Her cry when she's hungry is different than her cry when she's mad, which is different from her cry when she's cold.
Her language is rich with grunts, squeaks, moans, trills, howls, and a thousand thousand variations of all those things.
She wakes easily and falls asleep easily.
It often takes little to get her crying, and sometimes even less to get her to stop. But crying stretches her lungs and provides definitive proof that she is still breathing.
She smells of pinkness and warmth and contentedness, a fragrance more stunning than the most expensive perfumes. Her face is more perfect than anything Vermeer conceived and her cry makes Bach seem juvenile. Her eyes, still mostly closed, offer mystery and promise when a slit appears and a flash of iris shows itself.
She is most content when bundled tightly and free movement only makes her feel lost and cold. A tight swaddle stops crying instantly, and a loosening of her protective wraps brings a screech.
She is as light as a bundle of rags and heavier than all the world.
A gift, a responsibility, a privilege, a promise, a thesaurus of all the warm and wondrous words in all languages.
In my "Currently Reading" pile of books lies Prenatal Parenting by Frederick Wirth, M.D. Most interesting so far have been the sections on fetal sensory development, particularly the development and growth of the auditory system. Wirth writes that at "twenty-two weeks of gestation the developing infant will respond to sounds from outside the womb. By twenty-eight weeks the infant responds to sound in very consistent ways." (28) And so K talks to her walk driving to work, and I press my cheek to K's belly nightly and tell our daughter how much we're looking forward to meeting her.
Often, it's selections from Where the Sidewalk Ends, not so much because L will like it more -- obviously, fetal brain development at this point is not that advanced -- but because K likes Silverstein's playful language.