Two weeks

Jordan is nearly two weeks old now. If you want to be exact, she's thirteen days. It's gone by fast, but thirteen days ago seems like forever. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Regardless, a lot has happened in these past thirteen days...a few lives have been changed. Almost everyone told me that my life would change forever once Jordan was born, but I don't feel like a different person. I still feel like me with just a little bit less time to do some of the things I used to do. There wasn't some giant epiphany or Damascus road light, there was just a baby. And she wakes up a couple times a night and I don't sleep as much as I did two weeks ago, but I'm used to it now. I keep her awake after Davina feeds her so she can stay on a schedule. I try to burp her and change her as best I can and then we put her down again. And we go through the same ritual an hour and a half later. She cries some and stares at nothing a lot. We're seeing a little personality, but nothing big. She's just a baby. She's just someone who's dependent on us for everything and we're doing our best to do what's best for her. Right now is the easy part. She's around one of us every second of every day. There's nothing to worry about now. At some point down the road there will be: "why isn't she answering her phone?", "why is she out past curfew?", "is she really where she says she is?". I like this part now and I didn't think I would. I know I'll miss it when it's gone.

Last Thursday night, I got a call at home from my principal telling me that three of our students had been in a wreck and one had died. I made my way to the hospital and stayed up there until twelve that night. There were at least 60 other students there showing support. The next day the counseling staff and the headmaster met at school and we stayed there five hours mapping out the day for Monday, trying to figure out what the best decisions to make were. Last night, there was a visitation for the student who passed away and once again there were many kids there supporting the family. I spoke with the parents of the boy who passed away and left not having any idea of what they were going through. I cannot imagine it. The only thing I kept thinking about was what it must have been like when their child was two weeks old. I guess that's all I could relate to that situation. Did they hold him and say things in choppy words and make stupid noises like I do with Jordan? Did they tense up and want to pull their hair out when he screamed at two o'clock in the morning? I do that now. I'm sure they did all those things that I'm doing now with my daughter. I don't know what it's like to lose a child...I don't even know what it's like to watch a child grow up, but I know that I like where I am right now with my daughter. I get to hold her when I want to and make every decision for her. I know I won't always be able to do that. One day she'll have her own thoughts and her own decisions to make and at some point I will cease to be the biggest influence in her life. Maybe I underestimated how much I would like the newborn stage.