Silent Night

It's easiest to nurse her on the floor. 

She is strong enough and sure enough to cling to my front as we lower to the carpet, legs folding in, voice quiet in the dark. We've done a variation of this routine every few hours for the full of her earthly life, and we know one another's movements and responses instinctively. In the most natural of ways, I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.

My first Beloved, my mate and husband and Daddy to the babies, takes care of the big kids' bedtime. They're still downstairs picking up Playmobil unicorns and Lego fortresses and doll clothes and stray socks. The remnant debris of a day at home with four young children remains strewn about the place, waiting for attention that can only be given after the littles are tucked away in their beds for another night. It waits for me now, but it's removed from my concern. Here, it's just her.

She nurses assuredly, efficiently. At this time of evening, next to her crib and the rocking chair that used to cup us both in the dark hours of her infant nights, she is quiet, slow. Daytime feedings are playful and kicky, interspersed with rice cereal and Cheerios and often to-the-point. Nighttime feeding is for lingering.

"...and Mary pondered all these things in her heart..."

The windows in her room face the busy road, headlights and humming of to and fro, commutes. Different peoples going different directions. Outside these walls. I remember the words of the Mothers, the admonitions to soak up every moment of these Big Little years. I am tired thinking of all that lies ahead, all the ways I messed it up today, the ways a Better Mom would have handled today's struggles. 

Looking down from the smudged glass, her cheek is a peach, a blessing for touching. She's had her fill of milk, but is in no hurry to be removed from her cocoon of communion, breathing evenly, eyelashes a dark smear across soft cheek. She absently fingers the loops of ribbon on her tag blanket and unlatches. Though I'm lulled, I accept it: time for bed.

She's bigger now, she doesn't need a burp. Still, it doesn't hurt to hold her upright while I replace her natural mouthpiece with a purple pacifier and pat her jammied back. She holds her taggies to her face and turns into me, into the place she was first laid after leaving my body eleven months before now. My breath in her hair is warm, and a whiff of baby shampoo mingles with the scent of the baby. There is nothing like this. I whisper into her hair, her heart, her life: May the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD make his face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you. May the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

Sleep in heavenly Peace.