Bye Bye Baby

So my baby has all but abandoned babyhood*. He still has formula from a bottle 3-4 times a day, but sometimes it’s in a cup. I still change his diapers on a crazy regular schedule but instead of laying quiet he squirms and wants to pull out all the sheets from the baby wipes container. I still curse in front of him but now I’m starting to think he knows what I’m saying. He’s quickly becoming a little boy and as exhausting as it has been, it’s also been a lot of fun.

I started taking Henry to a Story and Rhyme session when he was barely 3 months old. At the time, he was one of the youngest there and it’s hard to say what he all got out of it. He’d just sit on my lap and look around. I figured he liked it because it was a rare moment in his life then that he would stay quiet for an entire hour. I kept going. The session is for 0-12 month olds. Back then, while Henry was safe and snug on my lap, there were older babies crawling around stealing toys, making gestures, doing cute things to make everyone laugh. Back then it was hard to imagine that this little creature, all doe eyed on my lap, would ever be that old. This past Wednesday I finally realized that my baby had become one of those little boys.

In the session on Wednesday, he never once sat on my lap. From the moment I set him down, he was off. During the story part, he sat there wiggling a maraca, holding up his arms and letting off an “I’m playing” yell. Once the singing began, he crawled to the middle of circle – directly in front of the two ladies who host the session – to get his own private show. When they brought out the drums, one of the ladies gave him a drum stick and he beat along. All of the mothers with their tiny little doe eyed babies in their arms looked at me. I could just hear their thoughts, “My baby will never be that old.”

Touchdown!

Today I took Henry to the park to feed the ducks. We’ve gone many times before but in the past, either he’d just sit in his stroller looking at me wanting his bottle or he’s fallen asleep before the first bread crumb is thrown. Today was different. Today he watched the ducks (and geese, and pigeons, and sea gulls) with real interest. Today he laughed when the ducks started quacking. Today he demanded some of the bread I was feeding the ducks (thank god I brought a non-moldy loaf). After the ducks we went over to the playground and I pushed him in the swing for a bit. He giggled and giggled and giggled and was really put off when I decided to go because it looked like his hands were going to catch frostbite from the metal chains (no gloves – bad mommy!).

Henry has also started to become a picky eater. Well, I can’t say that. He will still eat almost everything we give to him but he’s very insistent that what he eats he feeds to himself. This is fine if it’s finger food. It’s not so fine when the food requires a spoon. I gave him spaghetti tonight – pureed. I know he likes it. As I’m bringing the spoon to his mouth he whines at me, shuts his mouth and grabs at the spoon. This brings the pureed spaghetti all over his hands and the tray – which he starts to play with. He’s tired because it’s an hour until his bedtime so when he rubs his eyes, the spaghetti that he plays with gets in his eyes. He starts to cry. I try to wipe off his face and eyes but he doesn’t like that either. More crying. I finally manage to clean off his face and give him some dried pineapple to get him to a happy place so I can try the spaghetti again. I got the spaghetti down but it takes over a half hour and some distraction in the way of the Octonauts playing on the laptop. I know, I let my kid watch cartoons while he’s eating. Bad mommy.

We have a VTech walker that we got off of GumTree (aka: Craigslist). When we first got it, he would play with the activity board but he really didn’t get the hang of the walker part. With a few weeks practice, he now cruises across the room with this air of confidence. You can just see his desire to be talking on the phone while he’s walking along. It’s a weird feeling seeing your baby, your tiny little baby, upright and walking with his tiny, chubby, shaky little legs and knowing that soon enough the walker will no longer be needed. When he makes it across the room, Henry looks at me and smiles. He knows he’s growing too.

I think the very best thing about this age is that Henry is always happy to see me. Whether it’s in the morning when he first gets up, or when we pick him up from his nana’s, or if I leave the room for a moment and come back – it’s always a big smile for mommy (and daddy!). I don’t mean to be cheesy, but it honestly melts my heart each and every time. If I’m sad about his loss of babyhood, it’s only because it went so fast. He’s much cooler now than he was. Sure, I can’t leave him on the couch and still expect him to be there when I get back from the bathroom but at least now we can share a piece of cheese.

The shoe, however, he can have all to himself.

******

*I might have teared up a bit writing this.