A new perspective. Fresh steps.

I've changed the way my blog looks. Why? Well, I found this background and it reminded me of the road we travel on our way to our sailboat on the coast. I like it. It reminds me to breathe, and escape the city in my mind for a bit.

And it's fitting in a way, to have a picture of a path in front of me, because my baby, my just-a few days over-10-months baby, took two independent steps toward me.

I was showing her how to dance, to a song on the radio, and she smiled at me, grabbed a lime-green maraca, and took her first steps. To me. To reach me. And the look on her face (from what I saw through my proud tears) was priceless. It was confident. Pleased with herself. I wanted to hold her and help her along, I wanted to reach out to her and touch her delicate outstretched fingers with my own, but she had a look on her face that said "no, Mamo. I can do it. Let me show you."

I know it sounds terribly cliche, but as I watched her, two very contradictory things happened. My heart stretched and expanded with immense pride and love, and my lungs deflated, as if someone had taken my breath out of me. I couldn't breathe. I didn't want to. Didn't want to make a sound. I just watched her, and felt my heart pounding in the back of my throat, the noise distracting as I focused on this little girl with her incredibly long legs tentatively walking towards me.

This moment, although precious and a tiny bit surreal, came almost before I was ready for it. Is it possible that my baby is almost walking? Is this the same little alien that I brought home from the hospital not so long ago? Have I become the mum that jumps to peek at her every time she does something remotely interesting or even mundane?

Yes, my heart tells me. With an indulgent, drawn-out delicious Yesssssss, as if to encourage me.. to remind me... to look up, close my eyes, spread my arms wide, and let myself fall backward into the kind of love (and fear) that exists only in storybooks.

And my eyes start to fill again.

And I remember to breathe.