Day 169

Evabird, you've grown too big to sleep on my chest. For months, I pinned you there and held you until you stopped crying, until your breath grew rhythmic, until you slept and slept and finally woke. It's been almost six months, and still, I can't get enough of you. You smell like lavender and stewed apples and wishes gone good, and I bury my nose into your neck and lift you into the sky and think of how much more you'll grow, think of jumpropes and hopscotch and T-shirts and bubblegum, and my heart clenches a bit, wanting to keep you this close forever. This. Close. Always.

Eva, two days old