Compatible

On the days when we don't have to drive Ellis to school and Papa vacates the bed early to head to work, Charlie and I sleep in. I awake to the squeak of the pocket door of his bedroom and hear his quick, heavy footsteps make their way to me in the big bed. He climbs in and tickles himself on my curly hair, chattering to me while I feign sleep. Sometimes we play our favorite game and imagine that we are baby birds in our nest until imaginary worms are no longer sufficient to quell our hunger and we head to breakfast and the start of the day.

Our days are easy now, especially since winter and my rough pregnancy have curtailed many of the outdoor adventures we had this summer. He an I putter around the house flitting from activity to activity. Most often we run on parallel tracks, each doing our own thing, talking and laughing with each other periodically, pausing to share a meal. It is the quiet rhythm of compatibility we have had since he was a baby writ large by the fact that we spend the majority of our time together. I savor the fact that, for right now, we have been given the gift of the mellow, easy, free-form life we enjoy the most.

The swathe of solitary time we have together is about to end. In a few months another little one will join the rhythm of our days. I know that when I see Charlie for the first time after I give birth to his new brother or sister, he will seem so big to me, so grown, and will be my baby no longer. We will both struggle a bit to adjust to the transition, just another along the path of separating from each other as he grows. Nevertheless, we will continue to know in our easy laughter, that we will always be two pieces that broke off the same soul.