Sunday, March 6, 2011

a brand new soul

Week before last, we headed to Montana.


We had been waiting two weeks to meet this new soul.

The ugly-beautiful drive was totally worth it.  And when we walked in the door and they handed him off to us, I grabbed him by the armpits, supported his bobbly head and anticipated the weighty mass of the rest of his body.  But, I'd forgotten.  I wish I could cast the body-memory of a newborn in plaster like we do our nine-month bellies.  It is so easily and quickly forgotten as our biceps grow right along with them, that babies are so...small.  And the most shocking thing of all: young Samuel Fisher is a big baby.  He landed into this world at 9 pounds 2 ounces and was probably already 11-something by the time we saw him.

I remembered how it is with a newborn: they seem so impossibly small and yet--when you think he was just inside his mother's belly--so impossibly huge.  When Juniper was born I couldn't get over the small-bigness of her body.  I couldn't believe that a perfect little human was right there all along inside my belly, and then was out.  Impossible.  It's really an amazing thing, this choice we have to procreate.
Look how comfortable we are.  This is in stark contrast to the photos of me holding Sam's older brother Owen as a newborn.    

Juniper was enamored with Sam.  She would sidle up to us with her head cocked to the side and say in her sweetest voice, Bay-bee?  
Sam doesn't like to be laid down; an arrangement that worked out pretty swell while we were there.  


Owen turned 2 the day we arrived and I had knitted the brothers matching monkey hats.  (Well, Sam's was originally Owen's...you know how these things work.)  I didn't have a pattern and pretty much had to wing it, but I think they turned out awesome.  I had to learn a new skill: intarsia (that's the face knitted flat into the hat) and intarsia-in-the-round...and then, er, re-learn it again two years later.  Ahem.

:: Like last year around Owen's birthday, we hit the hotsprings:
Juniper could touch bottom and walk, which she thought was the bomb.  



Sam was in hog heaven.  I'm pretty sure he's already decided there is a God.

But our poolside Mama Bear, who undoubtedly needed the soaking most of all, was still a couple of weeks from midwife-approval.  

:: I hope we were helpful during our stay.  We cooked, we did laundry, we held Sam (twist our arms), we pointed out deer and elk and horses to Owen and Juniper (yes, all from the livingroom window), we mediated toddler spats, we hung out, we drank beer.

I never did feed the chickens.  I'm not sure who fed the chickens, but it wasn't me.  I should have.  I'll need the practice.
 
Welcome to the world little-big Sam!

3 comments:

  1. Whoops. My apologies to anyone who is subscribed via e-mail. I must have changed something in "settings" to where you don't see the entire post in your e-mail. I've changed it back : )

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  2. What a wonderful trip. Man, I melted at the Chico Hot Springs shots. Beautiful pictures. We were married there, July 19 2003. I love the look on Juniper's face standing beside Sam. She looks like a proud, proud cousin. I just adore the road trips where you travel through all types of weather to meet the newest members of the family.

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  3. The big-smallness, or the small-bigness, it's one of the imponderables of the world.
    I love the way you write.

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