Oh, snow! Thank you, thank you Brother North-wind!!! A million small blessings, falling on my face in the front yard, in the morning light. The most beautiful thing to wake up to.
[Pirouette, and flourish.]
All gone now, but nevermind. It was glorious.
There's a very small, very adorable baby dressed in a pale pink kimono onesie and oatmeal-colored tights lying between my legs under a crocheted blanket here on the chaise lounge. She's looking up out the big windows and talking to herself and kicking me in the stomach, which is one of my favorite things. She has long conversations with me and with herself and with the sky as she kicks and makes funny faces and balls up her fists and shoots out her arms and laughs at little things only she understands. We've been here for hours and hours today, wrapped in quilts and corgi and bottles and cups of tea. Sometimes she suddenly sleeps, or requests her bottle, but mostly we talk, and look, and sometimes I watch Christmas movies and surf Pinterest for ideas for window seats and her big-girl room (extremely fun). The furnace kicks on and goes off again. The sun comes out and disappears. The UPS man comes and goes, causing the poor puppers to lose her mind with anticipation. He often stops at our house, and brings her a treat; when he goes to someone else's (his truck is quite distinctive, so we know the second he turns onto our block) she can hardly believe her ears. We spent the weekend at parties, one ours, one our neighbors' for us, surrounded by friends and families. In the wake of such a long, sad week, it felt good to stick together and stay close to everyone we love. Under the evergreen boughs and the Christmas lights, listening to the old carols, remembering my dad and the ones who aren't here anymore, I held my baby girl in my warm arms and kissed her big pink cheeks and told her all sorts of things I wanted her to know. About good people. About snow. About good things. About joy. About love. Always about love.
