Magic touch

More often than not, Samaira sleeps through her car rides. Even if she is not sleepy at first, car rides can easily put her to sleep. But sometimes she doesn’t. Those are the times when she gets super chatty. While driving, I sometimes try and touch her car seat edge in the hope that she will become aware that her mommy is right there. This one time, she touched my hand as I was trying to flap the top of the car seat, and, for reasons I cannot explain – it felt like a magic touch. Her hands felt so soft, so small, so tender that all I could feel was the need to give her extreme care and protection so she never loses “it”. Her unexpected touch felt like magic. At the same time it made our vulnerabilities – her’s and mine, very real – how she needs me and I need her.

I was looking at our pictures from December last year and it almost made me feel like an outsider looking at someone else’s life. I guess the first few months of Samaira’s birth feel a little surreal now. I still can’t believe things we have experienced in the last 7.5 months. It still feels surreal that we decided to get our pregnancy photo shoot done on December 16^th, and Samaira decided to make her grand entrance to this world on December 17^th – I think she was just being nice and wanted to give us the satisfaction of getting our pictures taken while I could still flaunt my pregnant belly. It still feels surreal that a day and half after she was born, while we were standing next to her incubator, the nurse told us that Samaira has down syndrome. Our reaction to this news feels surreal. The next few weeks and months feel surreal. I don’t know at what point all of this became real.

But today feels real.

We have been spending long-quality-morning times lately. She wakes up at 5ish and starts her day with a sound of “aaaaaa…” That’s my alarm. I am so not worried about putting any alarm clock these days. Shockingly enough, I enjoy waking up with her to feed her, play with her, dance with her and get her ready for the day care. I will probably enjoy sleeping in just as much though ;).

Soon we are going to get to the point where I will be able to play with her hair plenty – if she lets me, that is. For now, we are doing a Flintstone Pebbles style pony for Samaira. My nieces, P & A, also flaunt this style of pony and look so cute that I invariably want to eat them up. Even though my sister and I are thousands of miles apart from each other, she has done a wonderful job of connecting my nieces with us – at a very emotional level. And she has done it, what seemed like, effortlessly! I believe that two sisters’ bond is probably the best kind of sibling-sibling bond – and I hope Samaira forms that bond with P & A! I hope they fight plenty, spend time talking/not-talking to each other, and at the end of the day – love each other immensely. That’s what sisters do.

I love spending time with Samaira, now more than ever. Her smile and giggles melt all my worries, any and all, into thin air, at least temporarily. It is fun learning more and more about her personality every single day. She has a killer gaze – one that can penetrate right into your soul – no kidding. I am a total fan of her intense gaze and her meaningful smiles! I wonder what kind of a person she will be….