"Do you feel it yet?"

Little man is turning two and I'm feeling stuff

In honor of our almost-two-year-old’s upcoming birthday, I’m resurrecting this poem from my notes app. Hope you enjoy xx

“Do you feel it yet?”

A timid croak in the dark
A barely-there question mark
Whispered in the small hours
Between bites of guacamole and cold chips
Trying not to wake the barely-sleeping bundle
In the hard plastic crib

Holding unsteady, aiming for brave
We had heard
this
was the deepest, the widest
The strongest we would ever love.

It was supposed to be immediate—
That’s what they said, at least—
It was supposed to be the whole world
Changing in front of our very eyes,
The Big Bang of new parenthood.

But if the world changed right then
We couldn’t see it through the sleep
Accumulating at the corners of our eyes
Through the skeletal exhaustion
Through the uncertainty in our shared gaze
Both a little too scared to ask,

When will it kick in?
Is it just me?
Do you feel it yet?

We didn’t know—
we couldn’t know—
That this new life
In his tiny body
With all the brilliance of the universe
Would be the one showing us
How to walk before running
His guiding hand around a single finger
Steadying our baby steps into those depths of love.

In the confidence of retrospection
I’m tempted to say,
“I can’t believe I ever doubted!”
But of course I can.

I didn’t know him yet—
I didn’t know
The sound of his small mouth so carefully forming that first “mama,”
The wonder in his eyes at every bird flight and squirrel leap,
The sight of him and his daddy hand in hand.

His tiny feet
Unsteady
But so brave,

Run, my little love—
You’ve showed me who I’ve always been
And I’ve never not loved you.

Do you feel it yet?