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2007-03-20 - 12.30am previous entry next entry
A letter to Matthew
Just a letter to Matthew that "happened" unexpectedly after I finished nursing him back to sleep last night. The photo is of Matthew at 7 months - I don't think I got round to posting it here before, but it happens to be a picture of Matthew just as he was when I felt inspired to write him a letter last night. I had taken the photo seconds after slipping quietly off the bed. Our tummies had been pressed together until then, and his face (when facing me) level with my breast, to nurse. He takes himself off the breast in his sleep by lifting his chin riiight up like that, and then stays sleeping like it until I pick him up and cuddle him for a while before putting him (completely unconscious) back into his cot. I know he is nursing back to sleep as a habit now, but I really don't care! I love it sooooooooooo much, and it will be GONE before I can bear to believe it's happened.
I love that baby boy so much. Here's the letter I wrote him last night, just to have it recorded here too:
Monday, 19th March 2007
12.30am (20th March)
Dear Matthew,
About half an hour ago, I was breastfeeding you in my bed, after you woke. You usually wake in the evening after 2 or 3 hours of sleep, and then again at around this time. You wake again at least twice before getting up for the day between 6 and 7am. I don�t resent a bit of it! I just love being close to you and seeing your sleepy little self, and breastfeeding you.
This time, as I lay breastfeeding you, side-by-side in my bed with our tummies together, I started to think thoughts that compelled me to write a little letter to you. It has to be �little� because it�s very late and Mummy is tired and needs to hurry up and go to bed!
You are 9 months old. Nine months and 5 days. You are not my one and only baby boy, because I have Arthur as my other little lovely. I love you both equally, and more fiercely than you can ever imagine. You each came with your own individual �bag of love� � a chamber of my heart that stretches infinitely and never breaks no matter how full it is stuffed! These bags are always the same size. That�s just how they come. I love you and Arthur the same, and enormously much.
But when there are moments of just you-and-me, I get the opportunity to focus more on just you. I get the same moments with Arthur. As I said, I love you both equally. Arthur is still breastfeeding too, so he gets plenty of close moments with me, just like you do. I hope you both keep breastfeeding for a long time to come, because I love it so very much.
Breastfeeding you is so wonderful. I watch you and wish I could slow down time, or have the ability to just take in every tiny detail about you and savour each and every one before that moment passes. I can�t physically do that, but I always try. I am so IN LOVE with you! You have the softest baby hair. I love it so much. It is soft and springy, and more fair in colour than Arthur�s. It�s so long already! It stands up on top, at least 2 inches, and it�s starting to bow out sideways with the length and increasing weight. I love to stroke your soft hair. You don�t much like to be fiddled with when you are breastfeeding though!
When you are finished breastfeeding and you�re asleep, you pull away from my breast with a slurp, and raise your chin RIGHT up, so that your face is turned up towards mine. Then you go still for a while, just moving your little mouth now and then as you sleep. That is the very moment when I always always want to freeze time. It was the same with Arthur, and he had sweet little mannerisms at that moment that are different to yours, but oh it�s such a precious moment for me, when a baby comes off the breast and settles to sleep with their little face upturned to mine! I look at you and just LOVE you with every fibre of my being. You look SO incredibly beautiful to me as I watch you. I can�t help smiling because of the joy that surges within me as I look at your face. Your cheeks are so soft and such a sweet shape! I usually end up bending my neck as far forward as it will go without moving my body and risking waking you, so that I can put gentle kisses on those precious little cheeks. Your skin is softer than soft � baby soft. You are just perfect, Matthew. I look at you and think, in that instant of just you-and-me, that I never saw anything so perfect in all my life. Of course, because I love Arthur the same as you, I have the same feelings when I look at Arthur while he sleeps too! But I just wanted to write down the way I feel when I look at you, to tell you, one day, before I forget. I know it is going to pass so quickly, and this evening and others like it will just be a faded distant memory that gives me both a warm glow and a wistful pang.
Tonight as I watched your sweet face while you slept, I found myself whispering aloud to you. Just thinking out loud, really. That�s when I knew I should write the thoughts down, just so they don�t get forgotten.
Everything is unknown. I don�t know how long I will have you here on this earth. I read diaries online written by parents who have lost a child at a young age, unexpectedly. Now that I�m a mother, reading such things just makes fear clutch at my throat, because I can�t fathom how on earth I could ever live through such agony, as that of losing you, now that you are here. I don�t even want to think down that line of thought any further, because it is too painful to even try. But it does make me think � I don�t know how long you will be here. I just want to freeze every perfect moment and savour it. I want to pour my love over you as much as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can.
Watching you sleep this evening, with my face inches from yours, I hoped that I would have you here for as long as I live. I hope I will outlive you, not because I WANT you to go through the pain of losing your own mother one day (something I haven�t yet experienced, but which is another thought that I find too painful to dwell on), but because I know I could not BEAR to lose you. I hope I will get to see you grow up into a man, and it seemed a crazy thought to look at your soft springy baby hair and wonder if one day I might see your grown-up hair starting to turn grey. I wonder if I will see you with your own children much older than you and Arthur are now. I have a lovely memory (captured in a photo, too) of Granny watching Grandy with a smile as he cuddled Arthur on his lap one time, when Arthur was about 16 months old. I thought how amazing it was that she was watching her own baby boy with greying hair, cuddling his baby GRANDSON on his knee, right there in front of her! I wonder if I will ever have that chance to see you do the same? I can�t imagine it now, of course.
Matthew, I pray that you will give your heart to God, and let him lead your life. I so hope that you will live a happy life, and feel fulfilled and satisfied with everything that you do. I hope you are never lonely, and that you will always be surrounded by people who love you. It is my longing to help provide that network for you, by blessing you with more siblings in years to come. I hope that a large family (if we do end up having one) will be a blessing to you and that you will have happy relationships with all of your siblings. I know that these things don�t always come naturally, but it�s my longing for you, because I love you so much.
Your name means, �Gift of God�. There is no name more fitting for you, Matthew. You have won my heart. You are such a precious little love, and I praise God for bringing you into our lives! I think there will be times when I am stretched to the limits (and beyond!) of my patience with you, as you get older, as I am starting to see little signs of some serious monkey-ness in you already! You are playful and eager. You enjoy company and love your brother. You like to be noticed, and to have attention when you want it (which isn�t all the time, but when it IS time, you must have it!). You are so like me in these things. You have a real mischievous sparkle, and you love to be tickled. I LOVE to tickle you, because you giggle and giggle, and that is one of the most precious sounds to my ears right now.
Every tiny part of your being is precious to me, and I get frustrated sometimes because I can�t breathe you in like I so want to, and I can�t get time to slow down so that I can keep you this way and never let you go. At the same time though, I am looking forward to time moving on, so that I can embrace everything you�ll do and say and think in the years to come. I just love everything about you. I could eat you up, and kiss you all over! You are so deliciously scrumptious! You just cut your first top front tooth. It�s your third tooth, after the bottom front two. I feel a mixture of sadness and excitement over the thought that your smile will soon be changing for good, from how I have known it so far. No more sweet gumminess! But I can�t wait to see your sweet baby teeth and your �new and improved� smile as all your teeth come in.
I really could write this letter for hours and hours on end, as I never run out of things I want to say about you, and writing about how much I love you. But you are sleeping in your cotbed behind me, just a couple of feet away, and it is late. I can hear your regular breathing, and now and then it changes speed or rhythm as you stir or dream a little. I need to climb into my bed, against the end of your cotbed, and fall asleep, so that I am able to deal with the busy day tomorrow, at home with my sweetest little boys! I do love you both so very much.
Perhaps one day I will write again, when my feelings overflow and I get that urge to write them for prosperity. Maybe one day you will read this letter? I can�t imagine that! For now, you are my tiny baby Mathsie-woo, my lambie-loo who grew in my tummy only very recently! I will continue to savour every second that I can while you are tiny and squidgable and MINE! I love you so much, and I enjoy being your mummy more than anything I ever imagined.
I love you, my sweet love.
Mummy xxx
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