I am so glad the days are getting longer.  I find it distressing when it gets dark so early.

Today Miles and I had a playdate at Jessa’s house.  Jessa is going to be Miles’s care provider when I go back to work in a couple of weeks.  Her little boy, Jonah, is just a month older than Miles, and the two of them did a good job together.  I’m feeling pretty okay about it.  It will be good for Miles to have a playmate and maybe even good for me to have some time away from him.

At one point this morning I picked Jonah up, and it was strange how he felt different from Miles.  They’re about the same size—Jonah might be a little bigger, but not a whole lot—but he was just not my little boy.  The whole balance of holding him was different, like his proportions were a bit different or something.  It’s funny how well I know every aspect of Miles, from his smell to how he feels in my arms to the sounds he makes.

I was listening to an author interview on NPR, and the interviewer asked the author about a scene in her book in which a young boy shuts his bedroom door and asks for privacy from his mother for the first time.  In the book (the title and author of which I’m sorry to say I don’t remember), the mother muses on the transition from his body being completely her business to less her business.

That hasn’t happened with us yet, but it’s an interesting moment to consider.  Right now I feel like Miles and I are more or less the same person.  When he bonks his head I can almost feel mine throbbing.  When his dad tosses him in the air, I can almost feel the tickle in my stomach.  That can’t last forever, of course, nor would I want it to; I don’t want to raise a little Norman Bates.

I guess it happens gradually.  This will be a good way to start.