Pressing In

You stand strong, muscles flexed.

Your tiny little toes pressed into me, inquisitive eyes gazing into mine.

And I, too, am wondering.

How, in what feels like both a blink and a lifetime, have you grown so quickly?

Wasn’t it just yesterday (no, last year) that all I knew about you was summed up by two tiny, faint, lines on a test result?

Pregnant.

From taking that test to being tested. You delighted and exhausted me. Drained of the energy that was once so familiar, filled to the seams with a love I was discovering day by day.

With you, I found the profoundness of ordinary moments, in the daily existence of our growing family.

My growing body.

My growing heart.

And now those little feet that I felt pressing out from the inside of me are now pressing down on my legs as I hold you up to look into your eyes.

Pressing down.

Tamping down my selfish heart.

Pressing, squeezing me outside of myself.

Was it perhaps that I was reborn with your birth?