{From the blog archives as my first baby, my little boss, my favorite Alexander ever, approaches his eighth birthday.} 

What I remember most is sleeping. A thick, warm slumber, like being cozied in a cocoon. Three in the morning, the tender touch of my husbands hand on mine. His palm rubbing small circles on the back of my hand. The green-blue ribbons of vein, vibrant beneath my thin skin. The stark room was large and washed in cold florescent light. My arm had slid from beneath the thin blankets and was resting on the chilled metal railing.

Sleeping and waiting. Each hour, opened and prodded. Three and a half centimeters at three-thirty. Five at five. The current of my body coursing forward in unison with the tides of time. Miraculous.

At six, they broke my water, flooding me in warmth. A bath and an epidural. Shuddering and damp I fell back against the pillows, breathing. Waiting. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. Relief. Exhale. And, I fell back into sleep, warm.

At nine, we were ready. He and I, ready for life. Four pushes, maybe five. Easy and natural. I was born to do this, I thought. Though he had done most of the work, sliding himself down the curve of my body, pressing on his own – while I sat, watching a contraction peak in jagged angles across the monitor thinking Thank God for epidurals.

Nine Forty-five. He was on my stomach, stretched with his arm beneath his head, a tightly curled fist on my chest – as though I’d given birth to Superman in mid-flight. We all remember this, my mother, husband and I, as though it’s a photograph that we can pass between one another and smile upon. His heroic posture belied only by the expression of complete shock on his small face.

Welcome to the world, Little One.

{And now he is turning EIGHT. Thoughts and reflection on this to come, as the holiday season allows.}