with each day, chiara grows and changes. it’s amazing to watch her face fill out, her limbs get longer, the changing patterns of her hair. she is becoming more expressive and animated, too, as she slowly gains control over her nervous system and her muscles and learns a little more every day about the world and her little place in it.

all of this is wonderfully affirming. i am so happy to get such an intimate and close-up view of another human being growing. but i can’t help but also feel a kind of ambivalence that i suspect i may feel for the length of my life as a parent. as much as i thrill over chiara’s every advance and accomplishment, i mourn the chiara she was yesterday and the days before. it seems ridiculous to say this about a baby who is not even nine weeks old yet, but she was so tiny and perfect, and, curled up, practically fit in my hand when she was born. i used to stare at her for hours, watching every twitch in her lips, her eyes and her body.

the truth is, each day that passes, she is almost like a new person, so i find myself missing the old one, too. such as, the chiara that cried a little baby cry that compelled me to pick her up, but that didn’t come with real tears and a beet-red face and scrunched up eyes and the fist that pulls at the hairs on top of her head — where did she learn that? no one in this family does that! or the chiara whose face goes into unconscious tics as she’s falling asleep, smiling at one moment, looking devilish with her eyes rolling to the side the next. she is still doing that, but i can tell that it won’t be long before she outgrows it. to be totally honest, i think what i miss most is her tinyness.

at the same time, i love every new thing each day brings. such as chiara’s new sounds that seem almost like a language. she has her soft little burbles and mews, her purrs and her snorts. and yesterday, she even made a noise that — i swear — sounded like she said “thank you.” i know no one is going to believe me, but i said thank you to her after she gave me a smile, holding her close to my face and gazing at her, and she responded with a two-syllable baby burble. and i was so excited, i repeated thank you, and she repeated her two-syllable burble.

even my own mom doesn’t believe me. oh well!

here’s a picture of chiara last weekend, on the day she turned 8 weeks old and was the youngest guest attending the 80th birthday party of a very dear family friend. in a couple days she will be 9 weeks!