Your first spring

Dearest Sunniva,

I've just rocked you to sleep in your stroller on the balcony, and I'm watching you as I write this post. This morning you decided to wake up at 6:15am, which was actually fine by me once I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and saw the deep tangerine rays of the early morning sun beaming through our living room windows and into our kitchen.

The kitchen is where we eat breakfast and where you love to discover new foods and make a glorious mess depending on the dish: avocado, pear, spaghetti, etc. Don't get me wrong - you don't eat spaghetti for breakfast - that's almost always homemade oatmeal and home-mashed pear.

After breakfast we went up to the third floor, our music, meditation and chess space, and we had a delightful time playing with finger puppets and the colorful fish you got from your cousin Tasha for Christmas. I played some banjo for you and as always you were happy to babble away at my side, absorbing the music and absorbed in your own world at the same time.

When we went to the front window of the third floor we met a neighborhood friend who first visited you last summer - the roe deer! Not sure if it was one of the same ones, but this young buck with velvety spring antlers took the same path they always do, nibbling his way along the brush line and then carefully crossing our little stretch of Huldreveien to nibble in the garden of the kind old lady from Haugesund.

I chose to hold you in my arms and encourage you to 'Look! Look at the deer!' instead of rushing down to get our camera, so I'll post a picture of last night's seance instead - proof that despite the lack of sleep, you have brought peace, contentment and joy to our lives in a way that we never knew before. And how could we have known? Your presence and personality have enriched us a thousand fold, and as your first year draws rapidly to a close, we greet the spring and summer with your happiness, excitement and wonder at each new day and its adventures.

Love,
Daddy