Fortunate fool

This kid, you guys. He's changing so fast that I barely have time to mark each new thing before he's moved on, and it's fun but it's terrifying, too. He's getting faster and faster at his funny little army crawl, and he's also constantly up on hands and knees, rocking and trying to work out how to go forward. We started solids last week, baby oatmeal and applesauce on Wednesday, then bananas and oatmeal on Sunday. He snarfs the food down like it's no big thing at all.

Dinner out with him now is a game of skill, constantly running interference between his shockingly fast little hands and the silverware, the plates, the drinking glasses, the menus. He's nearly out of his carseat, wriggles around in his high chair until it seems like he might find a way to escape, has thoroughly outgrown his swings and bouncy seat and Bumbo chair. He wants to go and see and do and chew, constantly, and when he goes to bed I often find I have just enough time and energy left to clean up from that day's whirlwind, but not to write or read or do much of anything else.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the boy he'll become and it's fascinating and heartwrenching all at once. I try to treat every day as a gift, to give him as much of my time as possible, to appreciate all of it as much as I can. He's still my baby, my little one, with pudgy fingers and soft hair and a sweet-smelling neck. But he's rapidly becoming a kid, too, with nimble hands and strong muscles and an independent streak to reckon with. We're learning as we go, he and I, but I think I like it this way.








Reading:  Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner

Playing:  Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons