Hoo Boy

Look, Succotash. I get it.

The world is interesting. And for someone who has literally never seen any of it ever before, it must be doubly so. Maybe more than doubly! It's possible I cannot appreciate your interest in your surroundings because I have not experienced that degree of wonder and bafflement and existential glee and despair since I myself was three months old.

But! Here's the thing about the world.

It will be there.

You do not need to resist sleep to absorb more of it. You can sleep. You can nap in the morning, and nap in the afternoon, and you can go to bed at night. After each instance, you will wake up. When you wake up, you will find us here, waiting for you, in the world. There will be sunlight and air, carpets and dog fur, blankets and footies. fresh diapers and foul ones, warm mothers and strong dads, Ella Fitzgerald, stuffed giraffes, and a silver rattle, all exactly where you left them (more or less).

It's okay. I understand why you are worried. I know that this is a moment in which you are learning that things fit together, that things progress and change, that days dawn and drag on and set and then night comes. It's all overwhelming. It can feel like you have to manage all of these changes all at once, take them in, understand them, even oversee them - but you don't. Not right now. Right now you are very tired, its a Sunday afternoon and you are in a fresh diaper and romper and you have your pacifier and your light blanket and you are nestled safe in your baby pouf, and as I watch your eyelids gradually lower, then fly open, then drift lower, then fly open again, then drift down until they are open only the merest slit but I can tell that you are looking at me through that slit, making sure I'm still here, I haven't gone anywhere, I wish I could tell you in a way that you would understand that you don't have to worry. You don't have to cry.

You can trust me.

I'll be here.