Thursday 22 January 2009

Betty was here

Sometimes when Betty is playing downstairs with her granny or her dad, I sneak into her bedroom and sit in the silence for a while.

Betty’s room is full of her personality. Her sweet, unique scent drifts up from her clothes and toys, better than any perfume, the most reassuring smell I’ve ever known.

Everything around me is proof of her perfect existence, and it all tells a little story that only she can understand. The five blocks neatly piled on top of one another underneath her cot. Her toy bus with two half-eaten biscuits, a clothes peg and some tomatoes as passengers. A little collection of stones and berries, carefully placed in a small tin bucket on the radiator. The drawings on the wall which she has somehow managed to create using coloured wooden blocks. Her beloved duck, wrapped in a nappy and lying on her changing mat.

All these things that say: ‘Betty was here’ make the top of my chest pull and tighten, and the blood rush to my head. I could never have imagined a love this overpowering and intense before her arrival in the Button household.

I wonder how I could possibly love another child as much as I love Betty. Even though I know that of course the new baby Button will be equally adored, I find it hard to imagine right now.

12 comments:

Catherine said...

You will, of course you will! Congratulations and glad your back on the blogging scene.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely beautifully written. I promise you that love is infinite; you will love your second child wholly and utterly, just like your first.

Anonymous said...

What a really lovely post.

I had those exact same feelings. That your first will always be the 'best' and another can never replicate that amazing feeling you have.
But as the ladies have said before me, it so does. Your heart just expands and accommodates another.
It's a bit like, before you have a baby everyone tells you want it's going to be like and how hard it is but how lovely it is and you're thinking 'yeah sure I've got it covered now, I understand.'
And it never EVER matches the actual thing!
So as much as we go on about you will absolutely love them as much, you only really know when you experience it yourself. x

Anonymous said...

Wow. I only hope that I get to experience that love and motherhood one day - you describe it so beautifully.
x

Iota said...

I love the little things that tell the tale of Betty's activities. Lovely.

Laura - Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy? said...

That's a lovely post.

Once number two comes along you'll have two rooms to sit in!

Potty Mummy said...

It's amazing, but you'll love No 2 just as much, though possibly in a different way. What a lovely post Elsie.

Coding Mamma (Tasha) said...

That was lovely.

And I know exactly what you mean about wondering whether you can possibly love another that much. Pretty much everyone I know with more than one child assures me that, like magic, you do manage to love them all that much.

Still worries me when I consider having another, though, and makes me understand why there are people willingly stopping at one child.

Anonymous said...

love for a child is unlike anything I could ever have imagined - so much its almost painful. Thank you coming back to the blogging world!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one to sit in my child's room to sniff that scent and look at her things. As the others have said - your love will just keep growing and growing.

Sparx said...

Oh, me too, I love the spud's room. And, everyone I know who has more than one says the same - just imagine how amazing to feel that way twice over! I have to keep going into his room when he's asleep just to sniff his head under the pretence that I'm checking if he's ok.

Anonymous said...

beautiful!