I have to admit, we were a little nervous about flying with you. A few days before our trip you experienced your worst, most traumatic teething yet – crying inconsolably for hours – it went beyond any anguish we’d experienced with you since you were born. But after a few hours the pain seemed to pass, and by Christmas Eve – our travel day – you were back to your happy, mellow self. You slept through your first take-off, turned around and flirted with the people behind us during the flight, cried over the landing, but then the rest of the flights there and back you were fine. Plenty of other babies weren’t, but you were calm and quiet, though squirmy.

Christmas in Maine with all of your grandparents was lots of fun. Your Grammy J is beside herself in love with you. And everyone was surprised to see how taken with you Peter was! He couldn’t stop raving about what a great baby you are. You made an impression, baby boy, but you always do.

You slept through the opening of gifts, curled up, out like a light, on your mama’s lap. So we had to have a second gift opening later after you woke up. You (or rather your dad) got a bunch of puppets to play with. You (and your dad) particularly love the bear in the stump puppet. It pops out of the stump and hugs you and you giggle and hug it back. You also got a yellow dog puppet and, what your dad has dubbed, “Geoffrey the Geopolitical Giraffe,” who likes to read to you from the newspaper. You also got a bunch of new books from your Granbunny and Grammy J.

You were asleep before Christmas dinner, but you joined us at the table the next night for lobster. And you loved lobster! We broke off the legs and you sucked on them like the native New Englander that you are in your genes. You also discovered a fondness for chèvre cheese.

While in Maine you accomplished an entire staircase climb, with your Grammy J following closely behind you to make sure you didn’t fall.

And you experienced your first really cold weather (not “Austin cold”), tasted snow and met some ducks that were hanging out around the frozen pond.

After Christmas we spent a couple days in Boston and you got to meet a bunch of your parents old friends and their kids. And we took a daytrip up to Connecticut for dinner with another set of friends. It was a quick trip, with lots of socializing, lots of traveling in cars and planes, and you did really well.

Though, we did establish one “bad” habit during the trip. Each night we would put you to sleep in your travel crib, but when you woke up during the night – as you inevitably did – we brought you into the bed. And even after we returned home, this is how you wanted to sleep. In the big bed, nestled between your dad and I. And I have to admit, I haven’t really tried to hard to break you of it, because I like having you cuddled up in bed with me too.

And finally, after all that whirlwind of holiday travel activity, you celebrated your first New Years’ Eve. By the time 2012 rolled around you were still awake, but pretty sleepy. And so were we.

Happy New Year baby boy! You made our 2011 truly the greatest, most memorable year of our lives.

Then suddenly, the pain seemed to mysteriously disappear. You stopped crying. I brought you downstairs and gave you some frozen peas.  The smiles came back. And you and the dog had a race to gobble up the peas you spilled across the floor.

This morning you took a shower with me, baby boy. Because you woke up with your face still covered in carrots, left over from last night’s late night dinner out.  I held you in my arms and warm water rained down on us. A strange sensation for you, so different from sitting in your tub. You clung tight to me, eyes wide. And you shivered in my arms. Not from cold. Not from fear exactly. From the strangeness of it all, perhaps. You didn’t cry though. You reached out your hand to feel the water coming down. Where was it coming from? You blinked at the water sprinkling onto your face.

I wrapped you up in a towel and put you in your bumbo chair beside the shower door so I could soap my hair.  You cried at being set down out of my arms. But then you slid open the shower door so you could see me. And broke into an insatiable fit of smiles.

And so, when I observed parents with their children and thought about how I might respond to my child in a given scenario, I saw myself teaching my child to operate in the world rationally. I saw myself calming temper tantrums with cool logic. I saw myself parenting in a way that was thoughtful, not reactive, and with enough emotional remove to give my child what he would need to thrive in this world, not necessarily what his or my feelings dictate in the moment. And when I heard people talk about the “cry it out” philosophy, it made sense to me – you would need to learn to self-comfort, I thought, so you won’t be as crushed as I was by the fickleness of human emotions.

This was my thought process.

But here’s what I didn’t know back then:

The love of a mother is not rational. It is not merely protective. It cannot even be contained as purely parental. It is a depth and dimension unlike anything else.

I didn’t expect that it would be in the role of a mother that I’d finally discover that rarified notion of “true love.” Or that a parent could “fall in love with” her child. But I have. And I have.

You and I, baby boy, share an intimacy deeper than any that two adults can share. An intimacy not muddied by expectations or disappointments, by fear of abandonment or regrets. You haven’t yet been molded by the complexity of this world, and so when you look at me, you look me in the eye, and it’s as though you are actually seeing me. Really seeing me. Not interpreting me through the filter of life experiences, as we adults do. And it is the purity of this gaze, I realize, that I have craved my entire life.

You cuddle up against me, little one, and look up at me with such earnestness as you nurse. And I am overcome, enthrallled, in love.

So my parenting style is turning out to be different from what I expected of myself. I still hope to teach you reason. And to quell tantrums with calm. And to be thoughtful not reactive. But the aloofness is not there. And I have decided that I disagree with the “cry it out” approach. Because I don’t want you to learn yet that your cries may go unanswered in this world. I have decided that attachment and trust are what’s most important, that with this you will later be able to self-comfort because you won’t fear abandonment. This is my hope.

Last night we were over at Geoffrey and Victoria’s house, and Geoffrey asked “when does the difficult part of parenting begin?” It occurred to me that what I once thought “difficult” would be is actually not what it is – or will be – at all. Difficult is not standing up from a dead sleep at four a.m. to respond to your cry. Difficult is not patience, or attentiveness. Difficult is knowing when to pull back so that you don’t grow up too sheltered. Difficult is knowing when to not respond to what feels right in the moment because there are lessons you need to learn. Difficult will be letting you eventually fly from the nest, little bird. That will be difficult.

But not yet. Not for a long while yet. Right now it’s still all about the nest. Nurturing my little bird. And basking in the glow of mother love. This is not difficult. This is bliss.