I was in Carter's today looking for a new pyjama for Jack. As I tried to pick only one, something caught my eye. It was a set of clothes that had two pieces: a onesie and a pair of coordinating pants. The front of the onesie said "dad's little man" or something like that.
It wasn't so much the actual clothes that stuck out to me. What made me notice them was that the tag said NB -- newborn size. I held them up. They were so tiny -- a world away from the 12 month robot pyjamas and striped t-shirt I was holding -- and I was struck by a feeling. It was the feeling I had the first time I went into Carter's a few weeks before Jack was born. I remembered it so clearly -- the mixture of excitement and nervousness, anticipation and joy. Love. Pure happiness.
And though it feels so far away, I remembered those outfits. The impossibly small ones that I stared at for so long and then finally got to put on someone. I remembered the feeling of dressing a newborn, the way they stay all curled up, the way you can picture what they must have looked like in your belly. I remembered the feeling, too, of having a newborn. How completely indescribable those early days are.
And then I thought of you. I imagined you putting your brand new baby in one of these tiny little outfits. I imagined you sitting and staring and this tiny, perfect being you created. I thought about how special those calm, quiet moments are; how you can sit there, just staring, for hours. How completly overwhelming the love is.
Being a parent is hard. It's exhausting and scary and frustrating and unrelenting. But it's so, so beautiful, too. There are so many cliches about it: how you'll never love anyone more, how quickly time moves, how it's a miracle. The thing is, they're all true. And I can't wait for you to get to have that experience. It's so much more than you've ever imagined.
No comments:
Post a Comment