Ever Growing

Sabine has been a dream lately, thank god. I, on the other hand, have felt like I'm in a dream for almost two weeks. I'm exhausted. All the time. I nap when she naps and fall asleep way too early each night. I'm almost 29 weeks now (feels more like 40) and I toss and turn all night and get up constantly to use the restroom. This little baby is breech at the moment and has a thunderous kick. I constantly wake up thinking someone is poking or squeezing or prodding my belly and then I realize I'm pregnant and there's a tiny human growing in there.

There's a handful of pregnant women around me. And all of them look tiny with a big basketball attached to their bellies. I, on the other hand, look and feel a lot more like Chris Farley (I'll post a photo soon).

For now, it's just me and Sabine during the day. That's going to change forever in just two and a half months. So I'm sitting and laying and cuddling and laughing and talking and exploring with her as much as possible until we have to share each other with someone else. Sometimes I don't want to. These days, I look at her and realize I don't just love her because she's my daughter. I love her because she's beautiful and funny and idiosyncratic and smart and silly and brave and strong and curious and so, so seemingly happy.

A beaming smile takes over her entire, delicious face when she rides the baby carousel for fifty cents in front of the 99 cents store. When we go to Old Navy, she falls all over the plastic dog and mannequin girl as if they're her best friends. She talks to them, hugs and kisses them, laughing the whole time as if they just told her the funniest joke she's ever heard. She kisses me and tells me she loves me all day. She tries to get so close to me; closer than on my lap or right beside me. She wants to be up against my chest with my arms wrapped around her (but my Chris Farley belly doesn't make that so easy at the moment).

I can't imagine yet the feelings I will have for baby number two--my last and final baby. Sabine makes me feel more than I ever imagined. She's turned my heart into this huge, swollen, bright, smiling, can't-get-enough-of-her beating thing that would shrivel if anything ever happened to her. She's made my life more beautiful, brilliant, tender and terrifying all at the same time.