Children

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Deedee
© Folakemi Emem-Akpan

I have begun to fantasize about sleep the same way I did about chocolate when I was a poor seven year old with only a mother for parents. My forehead has become a hub of pain, an incessant reminder of sleepless nights and I sometimes stumble mid-step, running my hands along walls for support like a blind bat out in the afternoon sun.

Deedee doesn’t have the kind of problems that I have. She sleeps twenty-two hours out of twenty-four and spends the remaining two eating or crying.

She is the source of my sleeplessness. And my headache. And my stumbling.

But she is also the source of my joy. And a constant reminder of God’s wonders.

When she smiles her toothless two-week old smile, I am reminded of God’s sun breaking out from behind dark clouds. A wiggle of her little toes or fingers tickle my body as she lays beside me and I am surprised at the suppleness of her fair skin.

Then when my husband of one year joins us on our bed, a sense of contentment washes over me. This is my family, I think, and my heart fills to overflowing. God must be a family man.

Is this how He feels when I as his baby girl smile a prayer of gratitude to Him? Is this how He feels when I tickle His heart with my praises?

I think so.

In her two weeks of existence, my daughter has taught me a lot. A precious lot.

I am like Deedee in God’s arms. Fragile; constantly needing attention; sometimes irritable, but always His own.

And when I remember to be grateful, it makes all His efforts on me worth the time and miracles He put into them.


*I wrote this when my daughter Jedidiah (short form – Deedee) was two weeks old. She is now four months old.

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