finding her there

I wake to a foot in the ribs, I turn over and realize she's crawled in sometime hours ago. I watch her sleeping, her chest rises and falls. She's exquisite, her perfect red lips pursed against her milky skin. Her wildly curled hair wrapped around her neck. I watch her, I notice a freckle, one I've not noticed before if that sort of thing is possible. I run my hand over the curve of her back.

Her foot kicks me unaware, she stretches in her sleep and wiggles her head back and forth, the movements she's made since she was a tiny baby, she makes them now. She's about to open her eyes and I want to close mine so I can still observe her unnoticed yet of course, I can't have it both ways. She's magnificent in the early dawn, but then she's magnificent all the time.

She wakes facing me. Her eyes light up, the brightest smile. Hi Mommy. And I smile broadly in return with tears pooling in my eyes. I am humbled that there are these moments of overwhelming grace and joy, that this little riblet is in my life teaching me how to love and risk and wrestle and try. I try and find new words and they don't come and yet I revel in this feeling, this amazement at her life.

A new day awaits us, a lazy one and I remind myself to live it with intention, to make each moment with her conscious and worthy of the magnitude it is.