to my favorite baby-daddy

i don't think i realized, when we slogged through mother's and father's days last year, that we could go through another round of holidays without a child at home, or at least without one that was doing something besides sitting on a shelf collecting dust or kicking me from the inside out. maybe it was too horrible to imagine. yet here we are. we're not exactly in perfect shape, but we've survived, together, dinged up but together, dammit.

i just went back to re-read where we were this time last year, and it made me so lonely for our first son, our hans. this time last year, his death was so fresh, our feeling so raw - it's like reading letters from two old friends we know but have lost touch with over time. but that raw feeling maintained my connection to hans, something that feels tenuous now. it's not that i don't think of him, but i have so little overall energy, and so much of it goes to just surviving this pregnancy, that poor hans gets far less than his due.

he was so beautiful, looked so much like you, with a tiny little bit of me and a bit of your grandma, oddly, too. he loved the music you loved, jumped to it - like you. milo, on the other hand, i think will be his own person. at the last ultrasound, i thought his profile looked like yours, but he seems to have his own schedule, his own rhythm, his own taste. and he will be so lucky to get what hans lost - to grow up with you as his dad.

milo will be in awe of your ability to tie shoes so they don't come untied and to run distances that would tire him (and me) and to sign with him fluently (just don't laugh with him at my rudimentary signing, okay? i am practicing.) and to operate big, noisy things like the lawn mower. i think he will love music, and books, too, but i think he may pick things we wouldn't. that's okay - we can grow. :)

i wanted to get you a father's day card from him - but then i thought, what about hans? and the tadpole, for that matter - how many people can i sign a card for because they can't sign it themselves? you and milo will have many father's days together in the future - i can't wait for next year - but hans will have to do with looking down on you from his perch above the stereo. he missed so much, but he was lucky to have you for his daddy.

te amo, mi amornino. i'm glad you're the father of all my children.