separate beings

last week eva and I went on our first adventure. we drove with my parents to Austin....about 14 hours. i thought she did fantastic considering we were able to listen to an entire book on tape without too much interruption. i owe most of the ease to yo gabba gabba. 

she will be 10 months old next week.....how did this happen.

We were in Texas for 6 days and stayed at my brother's house. We were tight on space in the car so I didn't bring her pack n play, she just slept with me on an air mattress. The first night I just lay there next to her...watching her. It was surreal. she wasn't in my arms...she was just her own little person sharing a bed with me. After so many months of her feeling like an appendage, like something physically attached to me...all of the sudden we were separate beings, and i immediately felt an overwhelming need to pull her close to me...to make her one with me again. 

I spent months dreaming of having my personal space again, and now that I have it, it feels like a piece of me is missing.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this feeling will not only remain, but be enhanced by such events as her first day of kindergarten, her first middle school dance, her graduation, her wedding and so on.