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let her nurse, but only if everything was okay. Everything must have been okay because she was almost three hours old before she had her first bath and we knew how much she weighed.

She was twenty-two minutes old before she "got groceries" for the first time. That is what I called it the first time we nursed and that term stuck. She would have gotten groceries sooner, but I was too busy talking to her and I forgot she was probably hungry. We said grace before she ate for the first time. Even my mom, who never eats a bite of anything with praying first, laughed when I laid her little hands on top of the other and thanked God for the good groceries He had helped me make for her.

Getting groceries turned out be the wonderful way she and I would bond. So wonderful, in fact, we still get groceries together. Just once a day, before bed, but we still do it. The world stops as we nurse. The phone is turned off and there is no television in the background. We don't even listen to music. That is something between just "us girls" and nothing comes between us when we get groceries.

When she was first born, I would touch her little cheek with my finger and talk to her as she got her groceries. Of course, I rattled on and on, but my tone was much softer. That was really the only time I spoke to her like she was baby. Any other time I spoke to her, I talked to her like she was an adult. I didn't know how to talk to a baby and I spoke to her like I spoke to anyone else. I tried to explain things to her in simpler words and shorter sentences, but that went out the window when she was just a few hours old.

Bath time was when she learned all of her body parts and about all the ingredients in baby shampoo and lotions. I would (still do) make up stories about bubbles and bath toys. She still asks me to tell her the story about the rubber duck that was swallowed by a bubble and taken to the land of the fairy princess and lived happily ever after in a royal baby bath tub.

Looking back, maybe I was a bit silly. I don't care. She will never doubt how much I love her and want her. She has no doubts her Daddy feels the same way. She is now able to tell everyone that she is "head not tail; I above and not beneath." She knows how much she is loved. She will never forget that as long as she lives. Silly? Probably, but I wouldn't change a thing. She and I share a bond that will never be broken, even though that umbilical cord was cut. Our bond now is much stronger than that cord ever could have been. I am the Momma and she is the daughter. Nothing comes between that as long as we love each other.

Learn more about this author, Emma Riley Sutton.
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