O’! my dearest forsaken,

I wanted to give this to you now, but you are too young to understand. Hopefully, one day — perhaps when I am playing the cloud circuit and you are still on the ray and beam — you will grasp what I am going to confess. Because I am not sure I do.

When you were about three months old, I tried to give you up for adoption. Worse yet, I still occasionally consider it.

But please understand: My reasons when you were on the quarter-year are far different than when you are on the half. And none had much to do with you.

When you were three months, I feared I was not parent enough to raise you. Here, on your six-month anniversary on the planet, I can tell myself I am parent enough. I often believe it.

But I still catch myself catching myself, usually with the nagging doubt that you could do better. With a bigger yard. With an additional pup. With better food, more exercise, a real pool instead of the kiddie one you splash every day and frantically circle when you get the hypers.

You never complain, of course, though sometimes your energy bottles into a deep sigh or a trailing whimper. And I will think: Take people up on their generous offers of a bigger house, a daily jog, a yard full of siblings.

But, clearly, I cannot bring myself to say goodbye. The notion of you not filling this postage stamp of a home with your dander and chocolate newness terrifies me. I am too taken with your ways.

I like the way you play. When you do, you play as a cat would. You will carry a ball through the house, and appear startled when you bat it with your Sasquatch paws AND IT WILL MOVE. So you will pounce, secure, repeat. Or how you play with a stuffed animal as an infant would admire a crib mobile: on your back, with arms aloft.

I like the way you eat. When you do, you will scamper from kitchen to living room, make sure I am still there, and return to your kibble.

I like the way you walk. When we do — molasses slow to you, I know — you will gaze up every few steps to verify that it is ME holding you back. If we are watching our daily sunsets from the backyard, you will laze in front of me, never behind, as if I would slip away in a careless moment. But I would not slip away. I do not think that I can.

I like the way you velcro. You will not abide bathroom privacy, sitting on my feet at the toilet and against the glass door when I shower. When I write, as I now do, you are under the table, dreaming and yipping and trembling enormous pads. Do you dream of open fields? Of brothers and sisters?

Above all, I like the way that you teach: how to human-up; how to wait it out; how to use “no” as sparingly as an adjective. You show me that you — like all your brethren of fang and claw — are not a pet at all. Nor even a puppy. You are an emotional 401k, offering to match 105% of my love investment.

You are the part of me that works. The heart of me that beats. Bon Iver was right: Only love is all maroon.

I was never brave enough to become a parent of flesh. Some hard days, I fret I am not meant to be one of fur.

Yet here we are, on postage stamps and kiddie pools. On your full birthday, (November 1; you are a Scorpio) perhaps you will get a decent-sized pool, one that is deeper than a ruler. Maybe you will get a yard that allows a sprint instead of a spin. I do not know, and not knowing is always the dilemma.

But I do know this, and you should, too: You will never sleep next to a boy who could love you more, whether you want it or not.

Happy Half Day, JayDee Barkinger.