Baby’s First Bridge
- 10
- 19
- 09
Dear Baby,
Today you are one. A full year has passed since you arrived, pink and screaming and strong. A full year has passed since I first studied your tiny face and kissed the tip of your nose and whispered your name in your ear. A big name that fits you perfectly.
A full year has passed since we brought you home, over the threshold of our good life and into our world, a world of which you are now inextricably and organically part. A full year has passed since your big sister studied you, slumbering and snug in your car seat, and then rocked you back and forth with unparalleled gentleness.
This weekend, we took you and your sister to the zoo. You were mesmerized by the llamas and the bunnies and the proud peacock. Your Daddy helped you feed a goat. You held out your tiny hand, splaying dimpled knuckles and chubby fingers, and watched in awe as this creature gobbled from your palm. You were not scared.
It was a magical day. A mixture of steady and stumbling, you chased your big sister around. You stayed close and strayed. You mimicked and did your own thing.
In this picture, you stand on a bridge at the zoo. You had run ahead of me, testing nascent wings, and while worry zipped through me, I hung back. I watched as you stopped squarely in the middle of that bridge and looked around. And like a good mother, I snapped a picture. To capture your cuteness and your spirit. To capture my baby on that bridge.
That first bridge.
Between there and here. Between here and there. Between baby and toddler and person. Between mine and ours and yours. Because we might hold you tight and protect you and feed you and sing you to sleep, but you are already yours.
Today, I can’t help but look back – at your first day and first smiles and first steps. But I can’t help but look forward either – to the day when you sing and speak in sentences, to the day when you can feed the goats on your own, to the day when you and your sister can have conversations. But most of all, I imagine a day when you can read these words and the ones that will follow. I imagine and hope that in reading these words, you will be able to glimpse your beginning and with it, the furious and complicated affection I have for you and your sister and your Daddy. An affection that fuels me. That compels me. That makes me tear up in Starbucks at 10:16am on a Monday morning.
Happy Birthday, Baby. Keep sniffing and smiling and stealing your sister’s yogurts. Keep growing and learning and treading life’s bridges. We will always be here to hold your hand or hang back.
Insecurely and forever yours,
Mommy
Everyone struggles and...
So, so beautiful Aidan. Made me remember the same markers with my daughters – and so helpful this morning as my almost-13-year-old left for school (crossing her own bridge) not too happy with the “me” she walked away from. This morning I hang back…grateful that somewhere within she knows I still hold her hand – even as she moves forward – less and less with me by her side, more and more holding on to herself. As it should be.
12 years after her 1-year-birthday (upcoming on Halloween), the same holds true: “I imagine a day when you can read these words and the ones that will follow. I imagine and hope that in reading these words, you will be able to glimpse your beginning and with it, the furious and complicated affection I have for you and your sister…” Indeed. It’s a complex, beautiful, poignant, transfixing, miraculous, excruciating, glorious thing.
Am sitting here crying at my desk. Birthdays are such markers of time passing and moving on, and in that way they are for me tremendously bittersweet. Your daughter is lucky to have your words and your pictures and your carefully documented memories of all the days, the mundane and the superlative, the fights over bagels and the first steps.
That’s what mothering is, at least to me. They are lucky to have you, those girls!
Much love.
Lindsey
Aidan, simply beautiful. I have always thought that the chemistry between mothers and children mixed with words is potent, and you illustrate this point with so much heart and soul. Happy birthday to your little one!
Ahhh, a great photo capture of a fleeting moment. Happy birthday to your little one and what a great gift for her to enjoy later – a heartfelt letter from her mother.
I do not have children and so can only speak to my experiences with my niece and nephew – each time I see them, I think, “No, THIS is the perfect age! They should stay like this!”
And in a moment, they are different and even better.
-R.
this makes me want to cry! my baby will be one in 3 1/2 months and i’m dreading it. they grow up too fast!
Happy Birthday Baby!
It’s hard being a Mommy. This is such a beautiful post.
Made me cry, I can’t believe a year has passed! My baby is nearly four months old and I don’t know where the time has gone. It flies by! You have captured the sadness and awe and love perfectly.
Baby’s First Bridge: Like I said before: superb.
Wonderful writing.
Looking forward to reading everything.
Regards, Marilyn
So so sweet. My baby had her first birthday just a few weeks ago. And just as I have realized on every one of my children’s birthdays, the day was for me as much as it was for her. Reflecting on the first year of life–the emotions are almost too much to take. I love the bridge shot; the metaphor. The truth and the sadness and the absolute inevitability of our kids growing up.
Gee wiz. I wish I could write this beautifully.
Happy Gave Birth Day to you!
Lucky baby happy b-day. Walking already? My baby is a month shy of his first year and still crawls!