The Greatest

In the middle of the night, I hear one or two cars pass every hour, and if its raining I can tell by the splash of the tires on the pavement. Most of the time, my neighbors upstairs have turned off the music and all the washers and dryers have fallen quiet. The insurance offices across the street are lit with warm lights that come on once the sun goes down. While sitting on my couch, I can also see the traffic light switch from red to green to yellow to red again, cycling over and over. If the wind is blowing, I can hear it swish through my chimney and cause the pilot light to waver and wiggle. I have also noticed my little fish, Fugi, stays near the bottom of his bowl at night, as if he was resting from a hard day's work.

After two months of getting up at anywhere from 2:30 am to 4:30 am to feed my daughter, these are some of the things that occupy my mind. I watch and listen to the quiet. But last night was different. I wasn't a zombie eager to sleep. This time I was awake.

My daughter had finished her bottle and was changed. Usually this is when I try to get her back to bed so I can get back to bed. But last night she looked at me with wide eyes and her grin with dimples and I didn't care how tired I felt. Instead, I laid her flat on a blanket in our living room and sat above her. Looking up at me, she kicked her legs and wiggled her arms and sometimes looked like she was going to do the backstroke. She smiled and gurgled and did her best to talk to me. We were connected as I looked down at her, literally taken with her every look.

I realized I didn't want a thing to change. I wanted her exactly how she is and each smile from her was like payment for the all the hard stuff. I kept feeling these little surges of warm joy and it was like being in love all over again. I couldn't repress my own laughter. I was giddy and grateful and I wondered to myself who on this earth could resist the smiling face of a baby? Who could repress something so happy?

I pulled up close to her little ears and I told her she was the greatest (which also reminded me of a song by Cat Power called "the Greatest"). So, I grabbed my nano and played the song right next to her ears through the speaker on the outside. She seemed to like it.

Now our little girl has been smiling for sometime, but why was it so powerful last night? I think it was because the world and my mind were finally still. I got her message and as I smiled back and held her little hands with my fingers, I sent my own message in return.