When a woman has a child, however it comes to her through birthing it herself or adopting, whatever way, we all do the secret look.We wait for a special moment of quiet,alone time and we strip them naked and count the fingers and toes,and take a quick look all over their body.After two days of just staring at this beautiful baby, I noticed Adam had a small scar by his eye from the forceps and trying to pull him out. His head a little mis-shapen, but we knew it was just from being in the birth canal too long. He never came that way, it was a c-section later. So Alex, c-section, he was so cute and his head was perfectly round and formed because he never went through the birth canal. BUT the same routine was done. After a day or two, I discovered he had a small birthmark on his touche, it wasn't even noticeable unless you pointed it out to someone. It looked like a light tan shadow shaped quarter on his skin. My grandma said that birthmarks were small kisses from God. I tended to agree with her, she was wise and smart, and it went well over with Alex when he got older, he felt special. Audra was so small we had her in a preemie outfit for the journey home and I was still in awe, she was a girl! And my three day inspection proved that. When they are that little, someone will ask you how old they are. I started out by days, then it went to weeks; 4,8,12,16, 24 weeks. I always used to laugh at this, but I did do it, especially with Alex. I would always add in too, "Isn't he just the cutest little Christmas present?" (he was born December 7th, and Adam called him a Christmas present) I always just wanted to say OH HE IS 6 MONTHS NOW but it never came out that way. Even the clothes you bought were for newborn, then they hopped to 3 months, 6,9,12,18 and 24; then they jumped to toddler sizes. So the shopping stores tried to make it easy to say months, but alot of time I still said weeks. After Alex passed away, I went back to counting days. I counted from the day he passed till the funeral. I counted days till the autopsy came. I counted the first day I laughed after his passing. I counted the days at how long it took me to write his funeral cards. I counted how long it took me to go through his things. I counted it ALL by days. Now, it's been 93 days, and yesterday someone in the pool store asked me how long it had been since he passed when they saw his funeral card when I opened my wallet (its encased in plastic and doesn't fit behind the money carrier.) I said it had been 3 months. It was the first time I had done that, counted by months. I am not sure if that's a breaking point, a step ahead of getting better at coping with his loss or just plain easier to say. But the days have now gone to months. A season has changed, and it will again in a few months. How I wish I could go back in time and say to someone who asked how old he is, "Two weeks miss, isn't he just the cutest little Christmas present?"