Yesterday evening, while I was making dinner, a flicker of motion outside the window caught my eye. I looked up and found myself face to face with the tiniest little fawn I have ever seen. He was peering into the window to see what was going on. Judging by his size and his ever-so-shaky legs, I would guess we looked at each other on the day of his birth. I walked over to the window to try to get a closer look, but mama deer came back to fetch him. She took off quickly into the woods and he turned to follow on his little, spindly, unsteady legs.

It is a remarkable thing to see a creature so new and raw. Last week AJ and I went to a place he calls �the butterfly house,� a nearby nature center with a tiny annex where they raise butterflies. We stood and watched in awe as a butterfly emerged from its chrysalis and slowly flapped its wings for the first time. AJ was still and silent � possibly the most still and silent I have ever seen him � but I found myself desperately squelching the urge to assist, to make things a little easier for the butterfly, to make things move a little faster. But of course, one touch of my finger and the butterfly would lose some of its nearly invisible feathers, mere dust on my finger would ruin its life.

Everywhere I look, it seems, I am viewing metaphors for my own relationship with AJ. The butterfly is, of course, the traditional emblem of letting go (that and Sting�s cloying �If you love someone, set them free�). The deer were more striking to me, though. The mother deer took off into the woods, not even looking back (at least as far as I could see), just assuming her new baby would follow. I look back all the time. In fact, I would be much more likely to push AJ in front of me. In witnessing the small gesture of mother urging fawn to the woods I may have seen the fawn�s first experience with fear. It will not be its last. But as a parent, my tendency is to protect AJ from fear. The mother deer, however, knows that it�s crucial that her fawn be totally familiar with it. It�s the only thing that will truly protect it. But I also saw more than a little of myself in the fawn � the odd mix of uncertainty and awkwardness with fearlessness, albeit fearlessness based on a lack of experience.

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