Graham did something last night that made me both incredibly proud and heart-wrenchingly sad.
He played with the cat.
Horace was sleeping in front of the fireplace, oblivious to the fact that Graham had placed around him the wooden giraffes and Inuit carvings we display in the room. Graham was chattering animatedly, showing the cat each figurine and making them dance in front of his unblinking eyes when it hit me.
Graham was no longer a toddler. Graham was a creative and imaginative little boy who was capable of creating fantasy worlds and magical playgrounds that he was anxious to share with a playmate.
And Graham was playing with the cat because he doesn't have a sibling to play with.
For a long time now I have wanted a sibling for Graham to play with. But yesterday was the first time my heart hurt with the yearning and the emptiness.
And with the inadequacy.
This is not where I expected to be. Life has given me many, many blessings to count and yet I did not expect this: that my almost-three-year-old would be reduced to sharing his childhood joys with a cat, even if I have always considered that cat my first baby.
Because he isn't. Of course he isn't.
Graham is my first baby. He is my only baby. And he's not a baby anymore: he's a little boy.
And that makes me both incredibly proud and heart-wrenchingly sad.
