Our Little Fellow

Oh, this little fellow. This round, rolypoly nugget of a baby boy.

He has been all I dreamed of for years and was worth the years of waiting I went through in hopes of experiencing raising a baby for the second time. He has surpassed my expectations and made my heart grow five sizes. He has given me new confidence in my ability to be a good mother and has helped reframe my sadness over how I felt I let Maggie down as a baby, when I was such a young mom and struggling to keep my head above water. He has expanded my capacity to love. He has given me a fresh perspective on life.

In our little family we are all utterly enamored with this boy. A coo or squawk from him brings us running, as we try to parrot his baby noises back to him gleefully. Maggie is the sweetest big sister and is so tender with him. She wipes his spit up and adjusts his carseat shade in the backseat, patting his leg if he fusses and informing us when he finally falls asleep. He adores her and looks at her like she's a celebrity; he's always completely absorbed in whatever she's doing. Josh is the most amazing father, changing almost every poopy diaper and singing nonsensical songs and rocking him to sleep when nothing else will soothe him. We all make up songs for him, inserting his name nonsensically, like so: "Old McVirgil had a farm, EIEIO!" My phone memory is filled with thousands of photos of his every little expression, capturing every angle of his luscious fat rolls of babyness.

He's slept in our room from day one, at first in my arms every night and later in a crib sidecarred to our bed. I lie in bed staring at him as he sleeps, overwhelmed with how much I love him and how cute of a a baby he is. I can't imagine having him sleep in a different room -- the night he was born, I went to lay him down, all swaddled and snug, in the crib next to our bed only inches away from me... And I couldn't leave him there for even a couple minutes. I had to have him in my arms. Now, as he approaches greater mobility and will soon be rolling over and need a little more security, the idea of putting the fourth side on his crib and moving it half a foot away from the bed breaks my heart. I routinely feel sad about the day he will go off to college and leave me. At this point, it's unfathomable, the idea of being without him. He's no longer a physical part of my body as he was during pregnancy, but he's attached to me through the beautiful relationship of breastfeeding for hours daily.

We love this little man, Virgil Emerson. I can't imagine a life without him and am grateful every day for the privilege of being his mama. I'll write soon about his birth: it didn't take long as far as hours go, but it felt like forever and I thought I would die but I didn't and it hurt more and was harder than anything I've done but I'm glad I did it and would do it a thousand times again if it meant getting to meet Virgil. He's just that kind of baby, the kind that I would do anything for.