December.

I'm having so much fun watching Isla grow, but it's December now so I inevitably think of Mila. I dress Isla in "her" pjs, swaddle her in "her" blankies, ask her if she likes looking in "her" play mirror, but it's hard to use many of her things -- brand new though they are -- without remembering with some pain that they used to belong to someone else. There are some really cute pennant banner-print pjs that I particularly treasure because I used to imagine Mila in them, and I love to see them on Isla, but in some ways it might be easier on me as Isla continues to grow out of Mila's old things.

Mila will have been two years old on the 23rd. Babies born around the time she died are having their second birthday parties, and I see their pictures -- all cheeks, long curly hair, baby teeth, and cake frosting. Big girls and boys.

Mila will always be a baby now, but it strikes me that the idea of who she would have been will keep growing every year until one day I will be thinking to myself, She would be 12... She would be 17... She would be 25... on and on, a grown woman that I won't get to know. The thought makes me ache.

I have some other scattered thoughts, but they'll have to wait because I can hear Isla waking up from her nap.