My Girl

Saturday, while Cade attended the Rising Tide 2 conference, Sydney and I did something we hardly ever do: nothing. We hung out at home for the duration of the morning, save a quick jaunt to the playground at City Park. We read books, did laundry, played with the cat, and moved a bookshelf from the landing at the top of the stairs. After her nap we went for a romp in the sprinkler, then took Baby NuNu (a frilly pink doll Cade's grandmother picked up at the thrift store where she volunteers one morning per week, named--by Sydney herself--after the plastic pacifier that hangs on a string around her neck) for an afternoon promenade, during which we finally met our new neighbors across the street. They have a 17 month-old son, and a pool, and a dog, and cookies which Jaun Pablo's mommy doled out generously. So, all in all, a very good, very relaxed, very abnormal day.

It's so different when Cade's not around; not different good, or different bad, but just plain different. There is an intensity, a certain focused attention, that is necessarily diluted when the three of us are present. For example: at several points in the day on Saturday, Sydney would climb into my lap, stare at me in this close-up, searching sort of manner, and take my face in her hands, where she would hold it for several seconds, just staring, sometimes biting her bottom lip intently, as if struggling for words. What was she trying to communicate to me? It felt like love, the unadulterated kind, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

I wanted to go to RT with Cade this weekend, but made the final decision against going precisely because I knew what I would be missing: this opportunity, these small, private moments, this inexplicable happiness. And it is moments like these that make me think about having another child--not simply because its fun, and fulfilling, and just so incredibly beautiful, but because I sometimes worry that the depth of my love, the intensity of my feeling, will prove to be too much. Its too much for one person, is how it feels.

Is that totally insane?

N.B. It's nice to discover that we're not the only family that had a worth-mentioning sort of weekend.