After our first child was born, it was easy to spend time with the baby. I was lucky to have a flexible job and spent at least a day or two a week at home, often more. Our second arrived last October and while my work life was much the same, Adrian was already there, soaking up energy and time. But stuck at home and with work fractured into bits and pieces of the day, I am suddenly doing those things with Sacha that absorbed me with Adrian: smiling to make him smile, tickling, laying his chubby body on my belly as he stretches his little hands for my face, carrying him about endlessly. All those things were happening before, of course, but in smaller, more fleeting moments. But now, in these strangely elastic days, I am finding the time to drag them out, to let them settle in and belong.