After three months of marriage I fell helplessly, madly in love with someone new. So did my husband. With the same person. No, I did not steal this plotline from the soap opera you watched last Tuesday. The object of our mutual affection is 17 weeks old, and I saw him for the third time this weekend.

When we first met him, he had bright blue eyes and the soft, almost featureless face of all babies, though people made immediate pronouncements that he resembled his grandfather's baby pictures, as well as me, his adoring aunt. Now he reminds me of no one more than Santa Claus, with his cheeks rosy from the windy streets of Manhattan and his big, open-mouthed, half-moon grin showing little ridges where he'll soon be teething. He giggles with delight when sung to. He sleeps pressed up against you in the snuggly, gripping your finger tightly until he enters the deepest phase of sleep.

There is something distinctly different about this contact with a baby who belongs to me. An increased emotional closeness, sure, but also a wonder at both the responsibility of being present throughout his life, and the possibility of who he will become as he grows into a child, a teenager, an adult with a personality, opinions, intellect, and talent. I speak French to him when I'm with him, hoping not only to take advantage of his developing brain's capacity to learn, but also to establish an unique link with him, something just for us.

He lives a six-hour drive but a short flight away, and I plan to see him as often as time and funding permit.