The Most Wonderful Father in the World

I watch you sleeping. Eyebrows raise, skin wrinkles, and muscles strain as you try to open your never-before-opened tiny eyes. Your legs are outstretched – long, skinny, covered in old-man skin. Your knees, your feet, are so small that they are hidden by a mere adult finger. Your tiny chest moves up and down as you concentrate on breathing. At times, it is still. These are the times when the alarms sound and the nurses hurry to remind you to breathe before your heart slows down. Something we all take for granted.

My boys are so small. They are so fragile. Their heads, their hands, their whole bodies are the tiniest little parts I have seen. I am amazed and frozen scared all in the same moment – every moment in their presence. Their tiny little behinds are so cute that I could pinch them. Their toes so sweet that I could gobble them up. No – my husband won’t let me eat the babies. He says they need all their parts. I suppose he is right – but MY GOD, THE CUTENESS!

The hospital has a program called Kangaroo Care. This is when the parents unbutton their shirts and hold the baby skin-to-skin for at least an hour. It is the most wonderful hour imaginable to any parent. Holding our babies makes us hopeful and happy and feel so close to them that it makes it unbearable to think of leaving them there and going home for the evening. Yesterday while Kangarooing my wonderful husband read the boys their first book – The Cat in the Hat. I almost cried. OK – I cried…but quietly. It was amazing to see him so content, to watch him hold his son and shut out the whole world to everything but the two of them. He could not have looked happier. I was in awe and cannot imagine loving him one ounce more than I did at that moment. As we left the hospital he said that it is so hard leaving them. I certainly have that feeling down.