Andrew at Three Months

I smile.  Andrew smiles back.  His warm weight presses on my legs, his feet pushing on my chest.  Our eyes are locked and the smile spreads like fire from his eyes to his brows to his cheeks.  It cracks his cherubic face into pure joy.  As if his tiny body only has room for one feeling at a time. 

His eyes are bright and blue but heavy with life and intention; brilliant with life and feeling, inexpressible meanings and inexplicable comprehensions.  They are his.  Sometimes, he will use them to follow us around the room, or fix on some light, and often they will implacably avoid our faces.  But now he is drinking from my eyes some drink I cannot fathom. What does he see?

His lower lip glistens in the warm glow of our living room.  The unnatural half-yellow of halogen warming the brown cushions beneath the knees, his Dad's knees, my knees, that support his head.  He has been sucking on his lower lip, again, and we are concerned it will chap.  He will not take a pacifier.

I wipe his lip with the cloth we always leave on the arm of the couch.  It has a bright red ribbon that reads "Biola."  A gift from work.  It smells a little sour with old milk, but then so does he if your nose gets near his mouth when he's screaming.  Like earlier tonight, when he wouldn't sooth.  We were in the dark bedroom where he was resisting his much needed nap.  White noise was rushing through the air.  It was a November evening nap -- past sunset but too early for bed.

But now he doesn't need sleep, he needs me.  He needs other people like we need other people, and his mouth is open wide and his gums, white and pink, are showing.  You can feel teeth behind them, if you rub your finger along them.  Little ridges: future pains.  His tongue is gathered up behind his gums like water behind a dam.  It is soft, poised, and capped with milk.

His damp little hands meet in front of his chest, tiny fingers together.   I give him my finger, and they possess it.  Tiny nails scrape my skin gently while he clumsily tries to take it with both hands.  His fingers work independently of each other, fluttery.  I pull away and give him his burp cloth.  He tries to put it into his mouth.  He can't figure it out, but he loves to try.  I love to watch him try.

He kicks, his feet alternating their pressure on my sternum.  He pauses.  The burp cloth is limp on his upper chest, and his fingers slowly flex open.  He is waiting, eyes now sedate, the fire calmed and retreated within.  Until I smile again.