PEACE LIKE A RIVER

My dearest little Frith :

On Monday you will be eight months old. It feels like just days ago I brought you home, wrapped in Four Big Blankets, when the world seemed too big and too cold a place for a perfect little bean such as Yourself. So soon, too quickly I sometimes feel.. you are already sitting and crawling and laughing and almost-standing.

Every night you fall asleep holding Theo (the non-specific-white-terry-cloth-animal) tight in your arms. You drift off to the sounds of your Fisher Price Aquarium playing Bach's first prelude. You sleep through the night almost every night, waking up just before six am every morning. I sneak upstairs, open up the curtains, and ask quietly "Is there a Frith in here I should know about?" and you giggle madly, and kick at the bars of your crib, and you reach for me with your arms open wide.

I take you for a walk every morning in your new backpack (I still like to carry you in your little front-sling too, but you're coming very close to being too heavy for this). While we walk, you play with my hair and sing Ba Ba Ba in my ear, and sometimes you let out a series of high-pitched screeches, if something particularly pleases you. Sometimes I pass you a cookie, and for the next few minutes I can hear you crunching away, dropping a trail of crumbs down the back of my neck.

You are tall and strong, my little one. A true Amazon. Last time I checked you weighed more than twenty pounds, and were nearly twenty-seven inches long - bigger than some kids twice your age. Your beautiful smile is a mile wide (this may be the only physical attribute you got from me). Your hair is finally starting to come in, a light reddish brown we think. A few nights ago we put it up into another bath mohawk, and this one stood up nearly an inch from your head. Your big eyes, which were a cold blue-grey like mine when you were born, now look almost brown - a warm velvety colour, with hints of green in it. Today you have a bruise on your forehead and another one on your cheek, from falling off my bed AGAIN (effective immediately you will nap in your CRIB, Fritha Jane). Your little baby-belly is round and sweet, and you snicker and chortle like a crazy person when I rub it with my nose. Your arms and legs are long and sturdy, and you have an absolutely perfect farmer tan.

You were a high-maintenance baby from the day you were born - you wanted to be held and you wanted to be bounced. Anything less, and you would scream - and my Goodness, could you scream. About three weeks ago this stopped, and you were suddenly not an infant any more. Now you will play by yourself sometimes for half an hour at a time. You have Preferences, and Clearly Stated Opinions. Your diet consists mostly of fruit and cereal (like your papa, you think vegetables are Yucky and cookies are Awesome). Every once in a while you look me straight in the eyes, and finally finally I think I can tell that you know I am your mama and that you love me (like your mama, you can be a Very Difficult Read).

In those very early days I would sing the old spiritual “Peace Like a River” to you when you cried - it was the song I sang as I walked the hospital halls with tiny You in my arms. It goes..

I’ve got peace like a river
I’ve got joy like a fountain
I’ve got love like an ocean
In my soul...

...because of you my beautiful Girl, my little Bean, my most perfect little Frith.