Exquisite

I'm sitting on my bed staring at the baby. I should be putting away laundry, doing the dishes, organizing the mess in the computer room, cleaning the living room....but I can't stop staring at the gorgeous, drooling bundle in my bed. I'll never have the chance again to just let the world stop and enjoy my baby. I can't imagine this beautiful, perfect baby will one day scream that he hates me, will one day leave me and will someday break my heart. What could possibly be more heart-wrenching than a child? I sometimes wonder why we become parents in the first place. I know, biologically we must repopulate, but on a purely emotional level, why would we choose this? That sounds cold, but I don't mean it like that. I mean that, especially with my older son, any hurt of his becomes my hurt. The thought of him being scared or sad becomes my pain, on top of any other pain I already had. My love for him and for the new baby is so all consuming that it makes my heart feel stretched and thin. I used to get so annoyed by women who would cry at tragic stories about children in the news. I didn't understand the problem, it wasn't their child that was hurt or killed, sure it's sad, but nothing to cry over. Something inside you breaks when you become a mother, every child becomes your child. Maybe it doesn't break, maybe it becomes complete, maybe that's how it was supposed to be all along.