Every morning our routine is the same: I get up between 6 and 7 am and let my wife, who wakes earlier to feed our newborn, go back to bed. I fix another bottle for our daughter, change her diaper, then she falls asleep on my chest for hours. I just read and occasionally kiss her little head, which — exactly like mine when I was born — is covered in so much dark brown hair it’s the first thing strangers comment on when they meet her. Every 15 minutes or so she sniffles or lets out a little yip and nuzzles her face into my chest and falls back asleep.

I’m racked by a sense of how ephemeral this all is — a kind of pre-nostalgia for when I know I’ll look back and remember these mornings in the sepia-toned blur of memory. I can’t wait to until she can share meals with me and talk and read. I yearn to see who she’ll grow up to be. But right now I just feel so lucky for these mornings, when nothing mattered except loving and nurturing her, being her ultimate protector.

What a gift unlike any other.

Reporter and writer. I cover energy, climate change and geopolitics. Contact me via my website www.alexanderckaufman.com and subscribe to kaufman.substack.com.

I'm going through the exact same situation with our newborn son and am experiencing the same feelings right now. It really does feel so and as tho it's already gone, but I'm trying to make the most of each of these moments and present and grounded for as much of that time as I can.