MBC

Our daughter already looks very different. This picture was taken not long after she arrived in the world the old-fashioned way, crushed out headfirst by Mommy into the shocking new light. Most of us begin puffy, red, and surprised by the sudden and confusing tumult of sounds and images flooding into our formless brains.

They say we can hardly differentiate ourselves from the world at first - we are one with creation. Until we find out, gradually, that shapes and sounds and people are actually separate, and our role is to distinguish and strive towards these other things using whatever facilities we've got at our disposal. If you're lucky - and I think MB is lucky - then you have parents and family to move you along, to guide and provide.

And so here we are on a Tuesday morning. The two other voices she hears are the bigger sisters getting ready for school. Lucky to have them too – although eventually she’ll run headlong into the thicket of emotion that comes between girls, which even now has disrupted and upset the sister who had been the youngest until only last Saturday.

So Dad makes breakfast one-handed, carrying you like a football, while Mom finally rests in the other room after sleepless night. The golden retriever, accustomed and content with his omega place in the pack order, follows behind, a few guarded paces. And while your sisters munch strawberries and waffles we all look back at you quietly – you with the dark bright eyes, taking in everything, and new.