La Luna

Somebody said to me recently, "Amelia is your brilliant sun but Nathan is the moon and stars."

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Having a second child just isn't like having the first. You can't recapture the same intense anticipation, excitement, and joy that having the first brings. You've been through it all before and it doesn't totally knock you out like it does the first time 'round.

Instead, I've discovered that my love for Nathan is stealthy. It creeps up on me slowly, in the peaceful moments of the day.

Sometimes I'll look down at him, when the house is still, and realize that he's stopped nursing and is just grinning up at me. For no reason other than to say, "Hi mom!"

And it hits me suddenly that while everything else has been going on, while the days have been rushing by in a blur of diapers and crying and laundry and new teeth, this little man has quietly and totally stolen my heart.

I find the celestial analogy especially fitting since he was born on a night that had a full moon. When a power transformer rained a shower of sparks and made our house so dark that we waited for his arrival in a room filled with candles and flashlights and a giant pool of water.

No, he'll never be the blazing sun that is Amelia, whose arrival set fire to our lives and past selves and forced us to our knees in worship.

But he is the shining orb that inspires unexpected joy and whose strong forces pull at us in ways we have barely begun to discover.

p.s. Have had family here all week, so please excuse the lack of posts. Will resume next week with more hilarious antics of our little thug, Mela, and the increasingly-good Baby Nathan.