Only the lonely?

Lately, Eli is enamored with the idea of eating vegetables and vitamins to grow big and tall. So this morning, after I gave him a vitamin, he announced: "I'm a big boy, Mommy. I'm not going to be your baby anymore."

When we got to school, he took his own jacket off, handed me some cars and told me to put them in his cubby, independently cleaned some toys off the classroom floor and then sat down for breakfast at the table with his friends.

On Monday, he'll officially turn 2.5 (happy half-birthday!), but he's obviously already a grown-up.

When Eli had just turned 2, it seemed like all my mommy friends were pregnant or already had their #2. At first this seemed shocking to me. Our children were literally just born. How could anyone be onto their second?!

Then, somewhere about the time Eli started running his own nighttime routine by telling me, "Get in the bed. Lay down. Lay down all the way! We need two books. I'll get the books. Stay until the song is over. Kiss my other cheek!" ...I realized that time is a crazy mistress. Our children were not literally just born. Our children were well on their way to becoming threenagers.

I sort of always suspected we might stop at "just" one child. My husband and I are both only children. To be honest, I think it worked out pretty well for me. I was close with my parents growing up. I entertained myself and got comfortable around adults. I was independent and self-sufficient.

Of course, my friend Marissa would say I also never learned how to share. And as an adult with a child of my own, it makes me sad that Eli doesn't have any aunts or uncles or cousins.

But financially, logistically, emotionally, it makes sense that Eli will be our only child.

You've heard the expression "baby fever" -- that feeling you get when your own baby is now a bona fide big kid and you get to hold a sweet, snuggly infant? I don't think I've ever had real baby fever. I love getting to hold my friends' newborns and infants, but to be honest, it freaks me out at the same time. I once had one of these! Look at the creepy faces he's making! I forgot that weird graspy thing they do with their hands! Oh man, she's rooting, she totally expects me to breastfeed her right now!

I think what I want is not a baby, but my baby over again -- the chance to go back and hold a teeny Eli tucked in one arm, to see that delighted smile again for the first time. To squeeze his chubby thighs and rock him in the glider and sing him his goodnight song without him interrupting to request a different song altogether.

Still, I always feel a twinge of something when I find out another mommy friend is pregnant again. I haven't been able to figure out what it is, because I always search myself for the will to have another child and I can never find it.

Then I realized: Although I don't want another child, I'd sort of like to be the kind of person who does want another child. I'd like to be the kind of mom who isn't afraid to do it all again.

But I'm not that kind of mom. And for a long time I thought that those other moms were somehow stronger or more capable than I am -- you know, I can barely handle one toddler, how can they handle two?!

I'm envious when I see my Facebook friends post pictures of their kids together. But it's the same kind of envious I feel when I see that someone works on Sesame Street, the job I always wanted -- that wistful feeling of having chosen a different path.

So instead of thinking so much about all those lasts -- This is the last time Eli will ever sleep in a crib -- I'll try to think ahead to all the firsts we'll have as a family: the first time we'll go on a plane ride, or the first time Eli goes on a sleepover and Phil and I are weirdly kid-free for the evening.

For now, I've made one thing very clear to Eli: He is a big boy. But now and forever, he is still my baby.