who's the bigger baby?

Took Gabriel to D.F.'s* yesterday for a little playtime. I dressed him up in adorable wheat-colored velveteen overalls, because years ago I read that people are nicer to cuter babies than ugly ones. I packed him a snack (Yobaby yogurts, because I am a sucker for cute packaging and he actually likes them -- sweet!) and wrote his name on his bag of diapers. We walked into the house through the backyard and Y, one of the amazing teachers, whisked him away to play. I talked to DF about how I would be just down the street at the coffee shop and she assured me she would call if there were any problems and even if their weren't. Gabriel started crying somewhere within the house. DF gave me a hug and sent me out the door and I walked away. I sat in the car on the street. I could hear Gabriel crying. I cried. And then, all of a sudden, I couldn't hear him anymore. So either they had, you know, silenced him for good, or he'd decided he could go along with it. I drove away. DF called me before I got to the main road, "He's fine. Y has him playing with a telephone that lights up. He's totally entranced." I parked the car and walked to a cafe feeling very weird. Like I had forgotten something critical. Oh, that would be my child! I ordered a latte and a chocolate croissant, which I very snobbily called "pain au chocolate" to the server who looked at me like I was totally insane. Gah! Chocolate croissant, chocolate croissant! I sat on the covered porch and read, which I haven't managed in a while. I'm reading The Amber Spyglass (why can I not underline? oh well, you know what I mean) the third book in childrens fantasy trilogy by Phillip Pullman. It is GOOD! It starts out in a parallel universe (I know, bear with me) where people have daemons, outward representations of their souls in the form of animals. Children's daemons can shift from animal to animal, but adult daemons settle into one creature particularly suited to their personalities. Aside from desperately wanting a daemon of my own (what would it be? what would it be? NOT a cat!), I have been very troubled by the fact that people in these books are constantly under threat of having their daemons separated from them -- painful, agonizing process leaving them hollow husks of the people they once were. I felt, as I walked down the street towards coffee and solitude, that some part of myself had been wrenched away. Gabriel, my poor amputated daemon baby. Perhaps I am a bit overwraught. I feel weird without having him at arms length, though. We're meant to be together. He's the one who's supposed to initiate the separation process. Not me. Not like this.
After an hour and a half, I returned to DF's and picked up a little guy who, they swore, had started to cry just a few seconds before I got there. He fussed and cried in the car seat all the way home and then nursed like a fiend, as if starved for a week, despite the snack I packed. Oh, this is going to be hard...


*Dawna Fantastik, the daycare lady