Cold Coffee and Yo-Yo Ma

Asleep on my chest is a tiny bundle with a thick mop of dark brown hair sprouting up from its top. This is the perfect vantage point from which to examine him as he snoozes, making quiet snoring noises similar to baby pig grunts. Soft pink cheeks, new eyelashes, delicate ears with detached lobes like his daddy. A button nose that reminds me of a Peanuts character when viewed in profile. And a sweet little mouth that when not inhaling these gentle gusts of sleep, is either yawning, pursing, sucking, or faking a sideways grin.

Our nights with Eli Henry have been good so far. It seems he realizes that his father and I are new at this, and so has decided to go easy on us. We have actually had bouts of sleep lasting as many as five hours before he stirs again to ask for a clean diaper and a bit of milk. His requests are always the same.

And then there’s 5 AM. Lately Eli likes this early morning hour, deeming it his “awake time,” when his striking grey-blue eyes are wide to the world and he seems almost ready to open up his mouth and talk to us. We, of course, are in a sleep-haze, and that’s when we turn on the music. For a two-week old, he has exceptionally refined taste, preferring Yo-Yo Ma Plays Bach to any other lullaby. If we do decide to sing, there is only one song that will do: “I Love My Socks,” made up on-the-spot by dad during a frantic diaper change our first week home.

I am sure that every new parent says this, but I truly can’t imagine life now without this little elf. It’s as if he’s always been here, cuddled up just inches away from my mug of tepid coffee and a bedside table that now hosts binkies and burp cloths and an alarm clock we have no need for. Our baby bird will wake us when it’s time to get up.