One of my greatest fears while carrying Pearl was my ability to express my love for her in the tender way you see so many mothers and daughters interact. Touchy-feely is just not my thing, PDA makes my brows furrow, and even if we’ve been friends for years my hugs are stiff and as brief as humanly possible. These facts tormented me for nine months, I feared we just wouldn’t connect.

At three and a half months old Pearl is rolling, gabbing, grabbing, and smiling. She shows an immense enthusiasm during storytime (that’s my girl!) and is one heck of a charmer in a crowd. She zeros in on me if she’s not in my arms, following my every move with her bright eyes which light up if she hears my voice or spots me across the room. She is thoroughly irresistible which is why I take a particular pride in yesterday’s milestone: giggling.

Bookworm babe

Sitting on the living room floor, she swung her arms in my direction and flashed a gummy grin, the one that often makes me think I’m on the verge of a very serious heart condition. I scooped her up and planted no less than one hundred smooches on both cheeks and she erupted, her tiny body wobbling and swaying with the effort of her very first giggle. I lost count of the kisses that followed in an attempt to replicate the most incredible sound known to man.

Smooches

When it comes to Pearl it turns out I’m 100% soft. Like an untapped mine of blazing devotion; I’m a snuggler, kisser, hugger, I’m downright lovey dovey. And nothing in my life has ever felt so natural and right. I know she won’t always giggle at these expressions of pure affection so I intend get my fill while the gettin’s good.

Sometimes I find myself racing ahead, even by decades, in life. When Pearl takes an enormous breath, the lung-filling kind an infant only uses to wail, I think of how she’ll be as a teenager. In her tiny, adorable face I can see the pain of hormonal rage 13 years down the road. One day she will say terrible things to me, things I recall saying to my own mother much to my adult shame. She may develop a routine as I did; sobbing, gulping for air, pounding deafening steps into the stairs and thundering my door shut so hard I’m sure I tested the physical structure of our house on several occasions. She will tell me I just don’t understand and she will believe it too.

Pearl Aideen

Treasure

It’s in these future moments that I know I will lovingly recall today and think it’s such a shame she’ll have lost the memory of our present by then. At four weeks old, Pearl has stolen my reality, nothing matters but her. I exist in a time warp, I lose hours and entire days. People ask what I’ve been up to, here’s a list: we have staring contests that last hours, I study her eyelashes trying to determine the science of their length, I agonize over her fingernails, I wash her hair far too often, sometimes she screams but then snuggles into my neck and promptly falls asleep to the thudding of my heart, we go on walks and she sleeps, we run errands and she sleeps, we read Game of Thrones and she sleeps, we go to bed and she is ready to party Andrew W.K. style.

He needed a little sugar & spice in his life

When I suggested to Logan that Pearl would never remember these days of total, earth-shattering love between us as she grew he scoffed and replied:

Hold onto your hat sweetheart, Pearl just got started loving you.

The beginning of a new love story

The sweetest