Welcome to the one and only world we know, Charlotte Quinn Trainor — Charlie, as you will be known, a babe in swaddling clothes. Friday night, holy night. God incarnated pays the world yet another visit.
I woke up just after midnight, checked my phone, and there you were in all your glory, all 8 pounds, 12 ounces of you, despite being three weeks early — two-fisted, eyes shut against the blinding light of this vast new dimension that just goes on and on, so different from your nine-month cloistering, so peacefully dark and comfortable and nourishing inside your mom. Life gets … more complicated from here. But you have tools to navigate with. Eyes that can see — and there is so much to see, so much beauty in this world, to which you just added, immeasurably, yours.
And ears to hear the music of that world; a nose for its myriad scents; a mouth and tongue to taste food and to wrap around words; hands that, once unclasped, will reach and grasp and caress and release. With these five sensors you will come to know life’s extraordinary immediacy and its nearly infinite goodness.
And two gifts more: a mind and a voice. Your mind the tip of the iceberg of consciousness, which we dearly hope is infinite. Look what you’ve already learned in less than a day — how to find the source of nourishment, how to root and drink the milk of mother’s kindness, and how to swallow. What a sensation that must be.