Song of the Week

No One's Gonna Love You - Band of Horses

I think this song is, again, pretty self-explanatory. So, instead, a brief anecdote: when Eek was very little and when we'd just moved into the nursery after the six weeks I had to stay away from steps and not pick her up by myself, I'd play this song while she laid in her crib. She would make little baby noises while I hummed under my breath. I'd lean over the rail and touch my fingers to her cheek, her hair, her little hands, and she'd gurgle up gas smiles and making her own humming noises. 

I guess it's pretty safe to say that this is another important song to us. 

Song of the Week

Nineteen, Tegan and Sara

When Eek was born, I was nineteen, so this song holds a special place in my heart, but probably not for the reasons you think. Obviously, this song isn't particularly a happy song, but the lyrics above reference for me the feelings I held about my daughter. She wasn't someone I was expecting to have this early in life, but at the same time she was someone I'd been expecting my entire life.

I didn't get to hold my daughter much later after she was born. It's something that I regret terribly, but there wasn't really anything I could do to remedy that situation. Her birth was unbelievably easy, but I had a postpartum hemorrhage right after she was born. Basically, what this means is that after you give birth, your blood vessels are supposed to contract back down to their normal size, but mine didn't. I had to have several blood transfusions and I don't remember a lot of those first few days in the hospital. I was very lucky to have a great doctor and a great set of nurses, because I'm not sure if I could have pulled through without them.

What this meant for my daughter is that I didn't get to hold her until about seven hours after she was born. Like I said, while I don't remember a lot from those first few days, I do remember in startling clarity the first time I held her. I was crying and I had so many IVs and tubes sticking out of my body that I felt like the Bride of Frankenstein or something. She was so small, and her eyes were scrunched up and she was so red. She had a head full of dark hair underneath her cap. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. She opened her eyes and stared at me and I ran my finger from her forehead to her jaw bone and cooed, "Oh baby, baby, baby" to her. I knew, deep in my bones, that she was what I'd been waiting for all these years.

I felt you in my legs before I even met you
and when I laid beside you for the first time
I told you, "I feel you in my heart and I don't even know you."

 Basically, that little bit of lyric ensconces all of my feelings toward this little baby I was looking at for the first time. I don't know you yet, but I'd like to.

Song of the Week

Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

I've been doing this project for my daughter, Eek, for about the past year. Instead of keeping a traditional baby book, I've been collecting things I think she should have - songs, poems, quotes, small letters from me, and days from her life - and I'm planning on purchasing a trunk and filling it with things that I think she might find comforting later in life. I plan on giving this to her on her eighteenth birthday, so when she goes on to the rest of her life, she'll always have something to remind her of her family. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it a secret from her for that long, but we'll see! 

I'm planning on doing a post like this every week - a song that I want to give my daughter and now, by extension, you. Some I will explain and others, like this one, I find to be self-explanatory.  Hopefully, you'll get something out of these little things too.