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11. The photosphere

Soleia 0.147

You've gone through phases.  Like seasons in miniature.  Babies lose weight after they're born - the transition off of intervenous nutrition from your mother is sometimes tenuous.  It isn't hard to imagine why: the foreign nature of coordinating the needs of a new little crying leech with the uneven and novel production of milk in your mother's breasts...Mama tried her best.  She really wanted it.  She wanted to love it, the process of nursing you and feeding you from her body as she had when you were inside of her.  But there was too much anxiety, too much uncertainty.  Too much work and too much coordinating when the outcome was unsure.  You had needs that her body couldn't provide - even when it could sometimes the fit between the two of you wasn't good.  There were too many moving parts at a time when we were desperately looking for the least troublesome way to make sure you were doing the one thing you had to do: grow.

Mama decided that we should move you exclusively to formula.

She was afraid that she was letting you down, or letting me down.  I told her that it was nonsense.  I also had selfish reasons though.  You see - I don't have breasts that lactate.  The move to formula meant more opportunity for me to feed you...to hold you in my arms.

Holding you as you feed gives me such unfettered access to your little face.  I regard the curves and lines as they shift, micron by micron, day by day.  I'd be lying if I said that I could see the changes in real time.  But I can close my eyes and remember what your face looked like just a few months ago (and needless to say, we have a lot of pictures).

You rest in my arms as I feed you, my eyes burning at the sight of the photosphere.  I stare down upon the surface of my daughter, the Sun, blinded not just by your beauty, not just by the magic and wonder of you, but also by the strange meandering visions that come to me of what you'll look like when you grow up.

I can imagine that I can see your hair curly like your mother.  Other places where you'll start to look like your mother - perhaps in your cheek bones or in your chin.  I see much of me in you, but that is temporary I figure.  I figure that you sharing in your mother's sex will cause the gradual shift to her features and nature over time - I'm just grateful that there was once a time when I could clearly see me in you, no matter how brief and fleeting a time it was.

Your skin is this growing golden sun-baked colour - far more uniform and I daresay, perfect, than mine ever was.  Near as I can tell you don't have a single blemish or birthmark anywhere, save for your storks bite, angel's kiss and some mongolian spots on your bum.  Me - I have little dots and marks and blemishes all over, along with a constellation of freckles on my cheeks.  But you seem to be painted with one magnificent brush - light emitted at a uniform frequency.

I think you are beautiful, my love, inside and out.  I think it because you are.  Never be afraid to let that light out into the world - through your smile, through your words and through your actions.

But unlike the Sun above - I find that I can stare at you all day long.

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