this is it.

it’s Friday afternoon, sunny and warm again, finally, after a week of unseasonal temperatures and misery. Oscar is napping in the room next to me, breathing heavily because of the cold and ear infection that continue to dog him. i know this for sure, this diagnosis, because we went to the doctor this morning, and got a whole new prescription which i hope works better than the last one…don’t even get me started on my neuroses about antibiotic resistance. he had a rough night last night, and he’s clingy today, inexplicable bouts of sadness and pouty lip overcoming him at random. but he’s snuggly, too, and still willing to giggle whenever grass tickles him or Mommy plays drums on the doctor’s stepping stool or the cat graces him with her mere presence: for these highlights, he is game. so i think he’s okay. when he wakes, we’ll get him changed, put the laundry in the dryer (okay, that part’ll be mostly me, as O’s laundry training is still in a sorry state of infancy), go outside, maybe walk up to the pharmacy and fill that prescription, maybe stop at the park and check out the swings. we will have a snack. we will read some books, and O will turn the pages far faster than i can actually get the words out, even though i am a proud speed-reader. we will return home, play with Daddy, have a bath, all with much kissing and naming and “no”ing and small hands poking and petting me, holding my own. it is a regular day here in the crib, a day like all the other days that have come and gone around the calendar for the past fourteen months.

and it is the last of these days, of this life where “at home” is the norm, for now. Monday i go to work.

i don’t think i really believe it.

i know that it’s true, but i have no concept, really of what it will be like. what the differences will be, and whether some of them will be losses that i’m unprepared for, that might have swayed my decision had i seen them coming. my breath is baited. and eager, at the same time, looking forward, looking back. i wonder if i will feel as close to him, or closer, being apart all day, most days. i wonder if i will ever see enough of him again. i wonder when i will blog, if not during naptime? and i know that there will be a new normal emerge from this, eventually, and that it will be busy but probably still alright and quite happy and not scar O for life or any such thing. or me, even….or Dave…i know this. i chose this path, this going back to work. with a huge part of myself, i want it. but i am responsible for it, too. and here, on the cusp of the new normal that is about to subsume the rhythm of living that has been Oscar’s “normal” since birth, i am scared as shit. it’s not guilt. it’s part of who i am - and have been since childhood. i grieve change, even whilst i throw myself headlong into it. and since Finn’s death, it’s been harder. all irrevocable change, no matter how small, how not a matter of life and death, still strips me naked and raw.  because i know that there is never any going back.

if you told me i could stop time right now and keep this afternoon forever, maybe minus the ear infection, i think i would.

but i know i can’t. time’s tricky, and will not be stopped, not ever quite as one wishes. and besides, this little dude will have none of it.

Oscar

he is growing up.  and Monday is coming soon.  and i will probably always hope i chose well, and never know for sure.