Tiny Hands

Occasionally when he is sleeping Miles likes to clasp his little hands together and hold them tight. It must be comforting, especially when the world is so big and you are still so small, to find another hand so close to hold. When we watch him doing this we joke that he is our little monk saying his prayers. One day when I was watching him do this I was reminded of the prayer I used to say when I was a little girl. I had a plaque that hung on my bedroom wall that was actually called "A Prayer for a Little Girl." The moment I remembered it the words spilled back into my mind and I found myself saying it again...

Then I realized that if there was a Prayer for a Little Girl there must also be one for this little boy that I love. After some looking, like with most things, I was able to "google" the answer. I am sad to say that I am not sure where my plaque is, but obviously the message remained. Here is it's likeness, and the corresponding "boy prayer."


I will let you analyze the differences and what they say for the gender bias they may or may not represent :-)

I must say however that situations like this one have taught me one of the most interesting lessons I have yet to learn about parenting. It is simply that the moment that you have a child you begin to remember your own childhood again. Sometimes the littlest thing will trigger a memory or make me wonder how my parents felt when they were taking care of me. I guess that is part of the magic of it all, the sort of seeing your own life again through the lens of someone else's eyes. I wonder what things Miles will remember... maybe the pictures on the wall of his childhood bedroom from his aunts and uncles, the way his papa sings to him, the smell of home, or all the weeds his mother made him pull in the garden! I guess that is also part of the beauty of parenting. It has this amazing essence filled with the nostalgia of looking forwards and backwards at the same time.

So, a week after we took the feet pictures we managed to settle in to another photo shoot of "tiny hands." Here are some of my favorites of his five week old hands, and also some "family portraits" of our hands together.

As you can see he was not very fond of the process... hopefully he will enjoy the pictures when he is looking back on them one day!