Nice to Meet You, Kit.

Hours after Elsie was born, we called our family and friends and I had a friend ask me if when I saw her "it was like I knew her" or "recognized" her, if she seemed familiar to me. And it was an interesting question that I thought about then and have considered since with Kit's birth, because actually what is so surprising is that the opposite is true. Elsie was so completely alien to me. She was strange because she was a baby, something foreign to me, but also as a person. And now, I am having the same experience with Kit. It is like I am just getting to know her--she is so unfamiliar to me, yet fascinating in spite of all of her newborn limitations. In fact, what I find is that getting to know her is not unlike falling in love: I met her and liked the looks of her, and then before too long, I can't get enough of her. I am enthralled by every little face twitch and semi-smile. Then the real smiles came, and my heart melted just like the cliches said it should. And I feel a catch in my throat... What we have seems like a private matter that no one has ever experienced before.

I had forgotten about this process, but I realized that aspects of it never disappear. Still to this day, when I'm lying in bed, relieved to be quiet in bed with Elsie and Kit quiet in beds in their own rooms, I find myself trying to remember the details of their expressions from earlier that day, trying to picture them precisely in my mind's eye, and eagerly anticipate seeing them again the next morning. No matter how "two" Elsie acted that day and no matter how glad I am that they are asleep, I can't wait to see them again. And I feel that catch in my throat.