Littlest (week three)

Littlest,

This post is very late, in fact, tomorrow you're four weeks old.

And I still don't know where the time has gone. (If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do is to save every day till eternity passes away just to spend them with you - Jimmy Croce)

I'll try to cast my mind back a week, because I really don't want to forget any of these days, and already they're so hazy - your deep and changing eyes, your funny expressions, the fine down along the rim of your ears, your tiny fingers clinging to one of my larger ones.

Last week, my Little one, was a haze of sickness. Your Daddy and I were still in the heart of it all and with the sleepless nights and your Daddy's long hours - sometimes not getting home till ten or eleven pm - it was all a mess.

But you were beautiful. Time spent just staring at you, drinking you in, made everything better. You had the slightest of snuffles but were still so alert, your eyes focusing on windows and ceilings with rapt attention.

You'd wake early each morning for a long feed, then fall asleep as soon as the car started on the school run, and generally sleep through being loaded into your sling, walked to and from the classroom, placed back in the car seat, taken out again, loaded into your sling, walked to Poppet's classroom, and put back into the car.

You stayed in your sling, a little warm presence beside my heart, like a little pouched possum-babe for a lot of the day. You looked around as we hung up the washing, fed the worms their scraps, swept the floor.

It is the same sling that we got for your brother, all those years ago. Your Daddy sat with your brother through most of the night for the whole of his first week, with him in that sling. I think he got through seventy levels of World of Warcraft. It was too hot for the tropics when we moved when Sprocket was four weeks, so it was packed away - and then with your sister there were two little ones so the double pram was handier and the sling was hardly used. Now, out of storage once again, I hardly take it off.

You got glitter on your face at playgroup last week, little one, and I couldn't help smiling and thinking it was the first time of many. Purple glitter sprinkled on your cheek and your near-bald head. You slept peacefully in the travel cot a kind mum brought in, and the children were all fascinated, going over to stand on tiptoe to peer down at you, coming over to study you when you woke and decided it was time for your feed.

The nights have been mild compared to your first week when it was bitterly cold- we haven't rugged you up as much, and you sleep with your little arms outstretched above your head.

The autumn leaves are rapidly going - winter approaches fast. I am looking forward to rugging you up in all your little hats and woollens.

My first tiny baby who will have a complete, proper winter.

But each bare tree reminds me of how quickly time is passing - the full, vivid glory of autumn only arrived when you did - and already it is fleeing. Much as I am eager to see the person you are, to watch you grow through every age, I wish I could slow these days down, that this time with you so small and perfect, would last far, far longer.