You have to be pretty oblivious not to be bowled over now and again by the plain old biology of this whole child-rearing thing. It’s easy to get caught up with all the financial and school and medical stuff (which is really all financial stuff, actually), but sometimes I’m caught off guard by the simple evidence of Ava’s life.
Take breathing. A lot of the time we sit around in amazement at all the physical things Ava does and all the funny, grown-up things she says. It’s easy to be amazed by those things and to wonder at how this funny little bundle of energy and attitude ever came to be.
Ava and I were lying in bed together the other night after she’d come in with us at about 11:30, and as I lay there drifting off again, I was taken aback by the simple sound of Ava’s gentle breathing. I couldn’t even see her, but the little, undeniable inhaling and exhaling was a revelation. More than anything I’d seen or heard Ava do in the last couple months, that sound distilled all my thoughts and feelings about my daughter and caused me to catch my breath there in the dark next to her. It was a wonderful moment, in the very best sense of the word.