Adoration

One of Edith’s favorite things to do is to stare worshipfully at me for hours, to follow me around the room with moony eyes. When I approach, she breaks into a radiant grin, and when I come within grabbing distance, she gives a happy gasp and clutches at my face with her spitty little hands. It is all very flattering, although intellectually, I am aware that she would be this much in love with any woman who was her mother. It’s not as if she had five mothers to pick from, and she decided that I was the superior one. Plus, evolutionarily speaking, she has to endear herself to me, so that I do not abandon her in the middle of a prairie.

Still, it doesn’t feel like she would love just any mother, because I can’t imagine loving just any baby as much as I love Edith. I love Edith in part because she is my baby, but also because she is perfect. Just literally perfect in every possible way. Every single thing she does is the most perfect thing a baby has ever done, every aspect of her appearance is the most perfect way for a baby to look. There is simply no better way to be a baby than the way Edith is going about it. My love for her is both subjective and objective. Anyone would love Edith unreservedly, even if they were not her mother at all, and the fact that everyone doesn’t is only because so far, most people are too unobservant and stupid to recognize what a completely ideal specimen of a baby she is in every respect.

And that is just as well, because if they did realize it, we’d never have a moment’s peace, and I want Edith to be able to live a private life.