Slight change in perspective.

I've become a cliche. In the best way possible, mind you.

I always rolled my eyes at any one of my girlfriends that professed this undying, indescribable love for their child. I didn't do it in a malicious way, I was just never a "baby person". I always found it really beautiful to watch, but I never saw myself in that kind of light. To be honest, I never really thought I'd have kids until I met the mister.

I now sit here in our living room, looking out at the lake through our floor to ceiling window, the soft static of the baby monitor buzzing in the background, glass of wine in front of me. The mister is in the nursery finishing the murals that he's painted on the wall of our little girl's room, and the star of the show is in her moses basket in our bedroom, doing her little lamb-like cries as she's trying to soothe herself to sleep (I find it so hard not to run in there sometimes and cuddle her, but I know she'll be okay on her own for a bit).

I have a daughter. It still hits me like a ton of bricks. I find it hard to say it sometimes, from the sheer power of what that means.

This little thing will be with us for the rest of our lives. I will always be a parent. I will always have this little hand to hold. We will always be teaching her things. How to dance. How to be brave. How to be good. How to love. How to laugh.

It destroys me, the amount of love that is coursing through my body- like some kind of potent drug that keeps radiating out of my pores, my eyes, all of my extremities. I feel broken into tiny sparkling fragments- each piece its own badge of happiness for what my life has become. When I look at her face, when I bring her into bed with me, when I smell the top of her head.. I end up bursting into tears. And what magnifies it even more is when I see her curled up on her father's chest.. these two people are the most precious things in the entire world to me. It's adoration personified.

It's true what women have always told me: you cannot explain the feeling that you have when you have a child. It's completely indescribable. And oddly enough, I can already imagine going through pregnancy all over again tomorrow. The pain has completely evaporated from my memory, and the only thing that's left is sheer addiction to make another and another of these precious little mini-versions of us.

My perspective hasn't changed dramatically, it's just shifted a bit. Like the difference between taking a picture with a standard camera and a panoramic one.

My world feels panoramic.