55 days

Sometimes I feel like I have known Lucia forever. She's now part of our lives and mostly, our entire lives revolve around her. But it's only been 55 days since we met her in person.

There's nothing else I can compare this to. Even with Belinda, when I first met her, I didn't see her every day and spent most of the time with her for the first 55 days. Even with Belinda, the love of my life, we eased-into the relation. Now I wish I could spend every day with her.

As I imagine happens to every new parent, we dove into falling in love with Lucia from the very first time she took a breath on this earth. We are madly in love with her. However, I have to confess it has been extremely intense and scary at times. Imagine you just met the person you think you will marry one day. You think you may end up living the rest of your life with him/her and you start testing (dating) how would it be to spend the rest of your lives together. This process usually takes a few months, or in Belinda and my case, 5 years.

It has only been 55 days after I saw Lucia's eyes for the first time. In these past few weeks I have seen her smile and cry for the first time and I have fallen in love time and again with her. I have been ready for quite some time to ask her to spend the rest of her life by our side. The good news is that she doesn't have much of a choice, so here I am, celebrating the fact that I get to spend the rest of my life with Belinda and with my beautiful daughter.

I never cease to be inspired by Belinda's natural ability to love and care for other people. She's probably one of the people that values sleep more than anything in this world. In our pre-Lucia lives, she was known for sleeping in 12 or more hours on the weekends and take a nap after that to rest from all the sleep. Well, not anymore. The longest consecutive period she's been able to sleep for the past 55 days is 6 hours, and that has happened only twice. She's my hero because not only does she endure the lack of sleep, but she does it with a smile on her face and always taking care of our little Lucia. I guess that's what most moms do, but seeing my beautiful wife transform into a nurturing mom has been one of the highlights of my life.