Sometimes when I think of Charlie and I am missing him, I am especially missing the little baby newborn version of him that I spent three days with in the hospital, not the wild, rambunctious almost six year old he has become today.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t love who he is today because I do. (Lots and lots!) But those three days in the hospital, he felt like he was all “mine.” I hadn’t signed the relinquishment papers yet and I was his mother; just his mother, without the “birth” part in front of it. But then, I signed those papers and gave a piece of motherhood to another.

I’m also saddened by the fact that I don’t know Charlie (the little boy I see before me today version) as well as I would like to, as well as a Mother should, and as well as I know Noah. I don’t know the small things, the things that seem so trivial.

When Noah was a baby, sweet potatoes were his favorite vegetable. I don’t know what Charlie’s favorite vegetable was. When Noah is getting tired, he will begin to rub his eyes, I don’t know what Charlie does when he gets tired. Noah doesn’t like his bath water cold, he likes it as hot as I will allow it to be. I don’t know what temperature Charlie likes his bath water to be. It’s hard when I think about those small things that I do not know that may seem so trivial to some people.

I know everything that happened those three days baby Charlie and I were in the hospital together. I know how many times he ate, what clothes I put on him, and what his cry sounded like. Yes, sometimes I really do miss those three days back when he was a baby and all “mine.”

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Photo of Charlie, 2 days old

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