Summer has officially begun. I have opened my summer office � also known as the balcony off of my bedroom � for the season and am sitting here watching the horses graze on the other side of the stream and trying to prevent the latest chapter draft from being carried off in the next breeze. While conditions may not be ideal for concentrated study, I am feeling much less deprived and am more inclined to work and less inclined to feel sorry for myself than in my subterranean office.

AJ has also been trying to escape to the out of doors as much as possible today. He rode his tricycle before school. He played outside at school, where he says he spent most of his time going down the slide and saying �Whee!� We went to the playground immediately after school where he went tearing around after a couple of hellions he met in the sandbox, stopping occasionally to yell, �Mommy! Look at me!� At moments like that I find it hard to imagine that just three years ago he was a fragile newborn in my arms. Or even more difficult to fathom, four years ago he didn�t even exist. It seems unthinkable.

These thoughts have been going through my mind today because a friend of mine just had a miscarriage. It would have been her third child. She had just gotten through the first trimester and had had two children previously with no problems, so it was a shock. The difference between existing and not existing is totally random and the barrier between the categories is very fragile.

AJ is taking his nap in his big boy bed. He fell asleep almost immediately after I left the room. I know this because I�ve been listening much more carefully to the baby monitor than usual, afraid that he might roll out of bed. I don�t want anything to dampen his enthusiasm for growing up. �I�m getting bigger and bigger!� He announces each morning, after attempting to measure himself against his growth chart on the wall. And of course he is. It�s odd to think about, because I am not getting bigger and bigger. We are different every day, he and I. Sometimes I wonder if it is I who is getting smaller and smaller.

But it seems wrong to wax philosophical on such a day. I think, perhaps, it�s time to distract myself from my melancholy bent with some actual work.

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