Alchemy

You turned four months old two days ago. We quietly observed that fact. You were reclined in your bouncy chair working on your fine motor skills and entertaining yourself. You're awfully cute as you reach and clammer for the amusements before you. You especially like hanging onto the triangular "rings".

Watching you, it occurred to me that relationships are an alchemical process. You start with these basic elements like smiles, poop, and movement and they are then distilled into things far more potent like love, awe, and frustration.

For instance, oftentimes when I'm feeding you at my breast you start to wiggle and squirm, then suddenly you fall quiet and still, your eyes will open, and you will take a huge poop. You will remain still as if you are reflecting on the roadmap of your body, and then just as quickly as you stopped squirmimg, you alight back again to feeding or squriming.

In these moments I love you immensely. Maybe it's that you're so uninhibited that I envy your liberation. Or maybe it's that I am privy to your intimate ways. It's hard to tell, and that's where the alchemy comes in. Something basic like pooping becomes transmuted into something far greater.