Something to Miss.

Over the weekend I went to New York to meet one of my best friend's brand new baby. I realize I'm lucky, writing sentences like that. I am not Dooce, nor do I harbor any illusions that I might someday be, and yet I've been to New York twice in Adelyn's 10-month-long life. I've also been to Florida, and to Atlanta, and spent more nights out with my friends and alone with my husband than, I think, most new moms get. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, but it's more due to an abundance of eager babysitters than a desire to be away from my baby. You know, I am 24 years old, and although I sowed my wild oats back in the day and no longer feel a desire to go crazy, there is still a part of me that needs to live separately from my life as a mother to feel sane and like myself. (I don't think this has a lot to do with age. I imagine it would be true in any decade of life, whether or not it's acted upon.)

I live so close to both sets of amazing grandparents partly because I love them and also because I really wanted that for Adelyn, to be able to have these other people in her life to offer perspective, and a break from me and her dad, and the kind of things that only family can offer. And it is because of this that I get to go places. It is also mostly thanks to Jason, who is sometimes so awesome that I don't really understand it. I keep reading on Babycenter the same cliche story of a woman about to go out of her mind because she hasn't had a minute to herself, to bathe or to grocery shop in peace, while her husband spends every free second playing Call of Duty (I've read some version of that post so many times it would be impossible to count.)

Anyway. I went to New York and had fun and missed Adelyn like crazy. Jason called me on my third day there, as I was walking literally hand-in-hand with my group of best friends down a street in Brooklyn, to tell me that Adelyn had said "Adelyn" to him and his parents. This nearly brought me to tears that, of course!, I had missed this, because as soon as you go away for a few days they always seem to do something miraculous. But it's nice to miss them sometimes, like really miss them. It makes you realize how special your life is, to have things to miss that badly.

I got to hold little five-week-old Dominic and watch my gorgeous, formerly-crazy best friend Elise living, almost in video-playback-mode-quality, my life eight and a half months ago. I've texted her the words "Hun, I so remember those days" all too often. But Dominic was amazing and so cuddly. And although I do not miss those days one tiny bit I did feel, for a fleeting second, that I wanted another one. It's hard to not feel that while holding a tiny, sleeping body in your arms.

I do miss when Addy had no choice but to cuddle with me. I don't, though, think I want to go back there anytime soon. If ever. I will happily settle for the sensation of holding a niece or nephew or honorary niece or nephew, and coming home to my babbling, Adelyn-saying, incessantly moving, only temporarily cuddly Adelyn.