Kiss

Little kisses so sincerely
Pressed on those she loves most dearly
With a little, rock-hard skull
Behind the kiss so soft and full.

Little smacking kisses planted
Where they're sure to be most wanted
Loud and loving in your ear
Though your skin is nowhere near.

Little kisses full of loving
Placed by babies full of shoving
In her eagerness to love us
She blows kisses high above us.

Little raining kisses falling
Little kiss-kiss noises calling
Little baby girls come crawling
For the biggest kisses back.

[Edit: This should have been posted in lnc - it has been now.]

Linnea

I love Linnea so much sometimes I want to cry, or be sick, or explode. She's the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. She's the best gift I've ever been given. She's the most fascinating person I've ever met. She's the biggest challenge I've ever had to live up to. She's the hardest work I've ever done - and I'm not talking about the birth, I'm talking about every day.

I always knew I wanted to be a mother - a stay-at-home mother, probably one who wrote on the side. I've been sure of it since I was 14. But I never knew how much it would suit me - how straightforward and natural it would seem, how simple the decisions are. It's easy - all I have to do is what I want, which is always to put what Linnea needs first, above everything and everyone, all the time.

Of course it's much bigger than I expected it to be. Of course I didn't really understand or believe how enormous it would be. Because it's huge.

I am glad now that I didn't know I had a miscarriage when I was 18. I thought it was a heavy, late period. Now that I've been pregnant "for real" I know it wasn't - I know how it feels to be pregnant now.

But I cannot be sorry that Linnea is my first baby. She's so wonderful, and I have the opportunity to be with her exactly as I always wanted to be with my babies. I couldn't have had that at 18.

Books: Help!

I have just discovered that some books I read as a child were by Gene Stratton-Porter and appear to be very hard to get in the UK (we all know what "limited availability" means to Amazon, don't we?) so I'd like someone else to do my thinking for me.

"Girl of the Limberlost", "The Keeper of Bees," and "The Magic Garden" are the ones I'm most interested in - and I'm not sure that "The Magic Garden is the one I think it is so a plot summary would be nice.