Of smiles and little else

B is becoming more and  more playful these days. She's also more generous with her smiles. We're all falling over each other to do the right things - the sort of things that she rewards with a smile or sometimes even better, ringing blissful peels of laughter. She finds mirth in the weirdest things - grandma's exaggerated cough, her dad swooshing her up and down, me touching her nose. Her smile isn't limited to just her lips, it is a celebration that envelops her whole body. She jumps up, buries her face in the crevices of her neck, waves her hand in an 'Oh Please!' sort of way and smiles, her tongue stuck in between her toothless gums. 

When her dad retrns from work and greets her with his trademark Betaa!, she does all of this and then puts her hand forward in an unmistakable invitation to hold her. I don’t often have her fawn over me like she does with her dad and I used to be jelaous.

Until recently.

I make it a point to feed her before bed, but only after she’s fully calmed down, as this makes her feed better. The other day, in the middle of her feed, she stopped. I assumed it was one of her many breaks, where she leans back to breathe before latching on again. But this wasn’t one of those. She just lay back and looked up at me, her eyes wide open. In a pure wonderment that only little babies would be capale of. I smiled back at her. I tightened my arms around her and told her I loved her. She continued to look at me. The intensity and purity in her gaze was at once unnerving and overwhelming; we’re rarely used to such unblemished emotions as adults. I felt my eyes well up. I caressed her hair and told her I’d forever be there for her and that I loved her. Suddenly, she broke into the most radiant smile. But she didn’t bury her face, instead she just continued to look up at me and kept smiling. I could’ve beheld that cherubic face and held on to her warm little body foregver.  A few more moments and then she closed her eyes and returned to feed, in a meditative peace. Since that day, B and I have had this private rendexvous everyday. It’s like her way of telling me that no matter what, I’ll always be special to her. And I look forward to it. A few moments when the res tof the world just melts away, just B and I looking into each others eyes and conveying all the love that words just cannot express.

Every moment with her is a miracle. I can’t be grateful enough.

Love and peace.