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Sweet baby boy,

Your daddy has come to refer to you as “My Anchor.” It is such an apt nickname for the way you have provided perspective and stability during a time when I could so very quickly spiral out of control.

It’s ironic, given how unpredictable and unstable newborn days often feel. Over the course of the past month, we have already experienced so much and survived so many bumps and hurdles. Those early days with you feel like a lifetime ago. From long hours in the hospital working on your latch with a team of nurses helping with position and pushing pumped milk into the nipple shield so your instant gratification personality wouldn’t yell quite so furiously, to a week spent holed up in my bedroom nursing and pumping and crying over sore, infected, feverish breasts, to venturing out of the house and braving public interaction for the first time since your grandmother died.

Parents are looked at as the protectors and keepers of their babies, and yet you are more a shield for me than I could ever be for you. You’re a focal point, a distraction, an excuse, a reason, a silver lining, and I can weather most social exchanges knowing I have you pressed against me as my protective, grounding cloak.

We’ve already packed away any 0-3 month clothes, a physical metaphor for the closing of your newborn days. You are now one month old, and fit comfortably into 6 month clothes, following in the footsteps of your oversized sisters. Every day, you are more alert, stronger, less a squishy mush and more a round, chubby baby. But I’m still enjoying that newborn lip quiver, those googley, wondering eyes, and those squeaky, pitiful infant noises. Most notably, your epic grunts. You are one loud, grunty babe, even in your sleep. And it is so very, very ridiculous.

I feel so deeply connected to you, my love. You are my saving grace during a time when I could not imagine needing it more.

I love you, my Sanderling. Happy One Month Birth Day.

143 Mama