Second Shot

 Oh my little stampy-footed baby! You are picking up a few more words and signs here and there - signing "help" is by far the best one, and you look so irritated when you have to resort to it - and you are more than three feet tall. 

I have just gotten my second vaccine shot. 

I am parked on the sofa today taking it easy, hoping I escape the side effects. I am thinking about you, and your sweet baby cheeks, and your stampy little feet, and the face you make when you are teething, with your lower lip tucked under your upper one, and your brown eyes wide. I am still nursing you, in part because you are a nursing superfan, but mainly because there now seems to be solid evidence that doing so will impart antibodies to you from my vaccination. I am going to nurse you until they have a vaccine for toddlers. With any luck that won't be too long from now.

I feel like I can glimpse the end, and a new life. 

I wonder how we will tell you about this time, when you are older. I wonder what we will say.

What I know for sure is, today, for the first time, I am beginning to feel the loosening of the grip of fear for the first time in over a year. I am so grateful that we have been able to keep you safe, and happy, and growing, even if it does mean that sometimes, when you are frustrated, you have stampy baby feet.