So much chatter, so little time to write at the Chattering household today! Our younger boy is still in his blue-striped pajamas, on day two of a mysterious fever, probably viral, says the doctor. After some early television viewing, I convinced Ailing Boy to settle into bed with a picture book since our old eye doctor once told me that when one is sick, one’s whole body is sick, and it’s best not to strain the eyes by reading fine print.

Our older son also spent the morning at home, since we had only a half day of school anyway and also since it was snowing. He wanted to practice his lines (with me) for his performance tonight in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Memorizing his part has been an all-consuming project, and I find myself torn, as a sensitive, hovering mother, wondering if it’s a worthwhile endeavor at such an early age. He’s only in sixth grade.

The advice I found myself giving him was the same I often give myself. Be in the moment. Have fun with it. Breathe.

Whenever I interrupted our reading with some bit of advice, he’d look at me, and say, “Mom, I have been in other plays.” And, as he pointed out, I’d never actually starred in one myself. Got me there. Being the quiet type, I never played anything bigger than one of the King of Siam’s many nonspeaking wives in our school’s production of “Anna and The King of Siam.”

I know that tonight, by nine p.m., when the whole show is over, he’ll be giddy and excited, drinking ginger ale, eating brownies, laughing with friends. At moments like that, you see your kids succeeding as they grow, starting to move away. You don’t know what to say.

This reminds me of a waking fantasy I had years ago as I sat on an airplane, looking out the plane’s window as I held him on my lap. He was less than a year old. Suddenly, an imagined picture of him appeared to me: he was outside the plane, in the clouds, in my mind’s eye, falling away from me. I looked again, terrified. But he seemed so peaceful. As if he knew what he was doing. Flying face up, staring back at me, getting smaller and smaller as he receded into the distance. It was like, even then, I was preparing myself for unavoidable separation.

I’m glad it’s happening gradually, in real time. I need to get used to it.