"Right now, he's my little boy. But I can still see the man he will become someday.

"Right now, he's my little boy. But I can still see the man he will become someday.

It's in the way he jumps into my arms, running for a hug, and I am struck, quite literally, by the weight of him against my body. He was never a dainty one, of course, having roared into the world all shoulders against the birth canal, his nine pounds and two ounces barreling into our lives with an energy that can't be contained.

But it's different now. His weight surprises me, the solid mass of it, the starling appearance of — are those...