the way she says apple.

love (no. 1)

She yawns her little rosebud mouth open to welcome in the first syllable: ahhhh— then munches down on it, lips rolling inward towards one another, cheeks shining, eyes narrowed with exertion and delight. Her lips roll back out, the double pp bouncing around inside, mouth full of sound. The next part, the grand finale, llllle — sometimes this deflates sweetly with the tremendous effort of speaking, and turns into a little poof! of an exhale. Sometimes she throws in a fffff, merging sounds to create the German apfel. Sometimes her determination pays off, though, and she slides into that final phoneme like a home run, delivering the luscious L sound perfectly, swallowing it like the juice of the fruit itself, then breathes it back out into pixie dust. Ahhhppphhlllee. Says it like the way she eats it, sounds like it tastes. The lilt and simplicity and the careful, careful placement of her tongue. The sincerity of noticing, the absolute joy of knowing exactly what one wants. To see and be seen. She says it again and again, faster now, face beaming with pride, whole body lit up with the pleasure of being understood.

I have never smiled so much in my life. She throws up directly onto my face and my one, singular thought is: good, honey, get it out. My pockets are full of things I’ve taken from her: found stones, mystery caps, dried flowers, tooth-marked crayons, torn pieces of overly ambitious to-do lists. She is pulling my hair, she is pinching my lips, she is looking at me—into me—with those satellite dish eyes, seeing things I cannot see. She is biting my nipple with her precious hamster teeth, she is scratching my belly with tiny talons, giggling her tinkly fairy laugh, mouthing my cheek with slobbery kisses. She smells like chamomile, powder, lemons, sugar. The weight of her body, the lightness of it. The delightful scrunch-face, an echo of my Sicilian great-grandmother reverberating back at me. I roll away after nursing her to sleep, gazing at her dumpling face turned to the side, lips and cheeks smushed together against the mattress. Her cherub hands prayer loosely together, like she is conjuring up invisible forces, or holding dazzling secrets of the universe between her palms, keeping them close to her chest.

It’s so cliche, and everyone says it, but it really is an entirely different kind of love. Like I didn’t know what love was before. My love for her changed the way I love you.

How did it change the way you love me?

I’m trying to think of an analogy… it was like I was colorblind and watching the sunset and thinking, that’s a beautiful sunset— and then suddenly I saw the world in color and never knew what a sunset could actually look like.

So Adeline is the sunset?

No, Adeline is seeing the world in color.

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Recently:

1. Flew to NY. Lucked out with extra seat on flight each way, daughter got bit by hedgehog, ate a perfect amount of pizzelles, chased daughter around grandma’s house, I hate Keurig machines more than anything on the planet.

2. Loved this essay

All Joy and A Lot of Fun