Talia at Eleven Months

Sweet baby, changing every day, as new as the sunrise and as beautiful.  A world in miniature - we watch her every day and we are somehow always searching for the tree inside the acorn.  What is it that she is becoming?  Every laugh, every step, every little expression, each baby is unique and individual from that first day, and we have to learn them just as they learn us.


Eleven months have gone by in the blink of a mother's eye.

I have a picture of me one early morning holding her warm new softness; that almost formless loose-skinned baby weight, downy shoulders and fat arms; and I recall pressing myself to memorise it, memorise her, that moment, just as she was.  A picture is not enough.  I wanted to hold on to the moment itself.

Well... I can't remember it.  Not the feel of her.  Only the words in my head, the things I told myself to think of, some day when that baby is no longer helpless and tiny.  The feel of her is gone.  Changed so utterly!

Her weight in my arms is different, the way she holds herself, her smell, the way her skin fits her now, her perfect voice.  She is just as much herself as ever, and I am just as in love.  It is all wonderful.

And yet incredibly fleeting.