She'll call me Mom

Tonight, I just have a few thoughts I wanted to put down before the moment passes and I forget them. They occurred to me as I was feeding Lily and putting her to bed.

My mom and sister came over this evening for supper and to play with Lily so I could get some things done outside and around the house. It was wonderful! They kept an eye on Liliana, helped me eat the turkey I (finally) cooked (it'd been in my freezer since December), and even helped me bake some food and clean the house. Lily started getting fussy and it was time for Mom and Kim to leave, so I took her and we waved as they headed out the door.

And then Lily was quiet. She sat contentedly on my hip as I did a few more things before we settled in for our night time routine. We changed her diaper, read a book, then she began to nurse. As I watched her calm and drift off to sleep in my arms, I thought about the fact that she had absolutely no frame of reference for things when she was born. She had no concept of cold or hot, high or low, bright or dark, loud or quiet. She has learned and is learning these things with each new day and each new experience.

It got me thinking about what her framework for referencing things is being built of. And then I realized it's me. It's me and Chase and the life we're introducing her to. She's at the age where where she definitely knows who Chase and I are, and she definitely prefers us to others (which I love. She grins when I walk in the room. She lights up when her daddy comes home. What could be better?).

I thought about what she knows at this point. She knows that my voice means familiarity. She knows the look of my face means happiness. She knows my smell means comfort. And I like to think that she knows my touch means love.

This morning at work, she was in her swing next to me and we were talking, cooing, back and forth as I worked. And then I laughed at something. And then she laughed with me. I looked over, surprised that she had joined in when I hadn't done anything to elicit the reaction other than laugh myself. I laughed more. She laughed more. Then I laughed that we were laughing and she laughed right along with me! We giggled like school girls until we were out of breath. And then we grinned at each other.

It's a huge responsibility to introduce this little tyke to the wide world around her, to filter out and protect her from those things that would harm her. But it's such a privilege and delight to be one of the essential building blocks, perhaps even the cornerstone, upon which she will build her frame of reference for the world.