hmmmmm. Olive. I smile just writing your name. I need to write about how you smile, and how I’ve woken up to your smiling face for the past 4 months or so….you were an early smiler. I actually feel like I saw you smile when you were an hour old, and then every day after that I kept seeing it, but told myself there’s no way a baby smiles that early. And then your dad said he thought he’d been seeing it too. It became very clear that you were definitely smiling when you were about two weeks old. I will never forget, this exchange you and I had in the studio, when you were 2 weeks old, and I put on the lonesome sisters, and started crying thinking about mawmaw dying, and your’ being born, and then just feeling a wave of realization come over me around all of our preciousness, vulnerability, and mortality. you were just hanging there in the sling. I looked down at you through tears. you looked right into my eyes, and gave me the clearest, brightest smile I’d ever seen I’m pretty sure. And you still do this all the time. You just did it, you awoke from your little trident nap, looked up at me, smiled, and fell back into sleep. You’ve also had this little habit of awaking from sleep just to make sure I’m there, and when you see me, you drift right back in. sometimes you do this when nursing. You pull off for a sec, look up at me and smile, or just look into my eyes, and then pop right back on like a little animal. I am in love with how comforted you are by my face. And I am in love with waking up everyday, looking into your eyes, and smiling together for minutes. then zhi wakes up and comes in, for more minutes of smiling…..followed by max. dad has usually gotten out of bed into the shower by this point, but he’s there for the first bit, and then catches the scene while getting dressed, as we all lay and emit love for each other….and then at some point either you or I start to feel a little clustered, and have to end the party. Those big kids have a way of getting excited that is a hard to hang with for long first thing in the morning. That’s how we start our days, olive. It is a full on treat, little hummingbird that you are. Little joy, baby love. I am in love with YOU. You are at the moment smiling at two women at the tables across from us, and they are smiling back, and waving at you. I have a feeling you’re not gonna be a shy one.
