LAST NIGHT...

Here is something interesting about me that I am pretty unapologetic about.  I love my child.  In fact, if you know me you know I really do (that is not the interesting thing).  However, the ‘infant/baby’ phase does very little for me.  I have heard all the warnings about, ‘wishing it away’, but I figure each parent has a stage in life when they are rockstars and some parents are really good with babies.  Some parents would like nothing more than to rock their sweet baby boy/girl all day long.  I am not that parent.  I am super psyched for Lil’ Aaron to grow up and to hear the sound of his voice, to watch him walk, to discover the world with him.  So, this phase, I am kind of excited to be out of (number 2 will take care of any longing I might have).  So, yesterday I truly surprised myself in my sentimentality about Aaron’s baby-ness going away.

Our kid is magical for a lot of reasons and in a lot of ways, he has rocked the ‘milestone’ chart.  BUT, in some ways, he has just decided to create his own reality.  As a consequence, he JUST learned to roll over from his back to his front (don’t worry, he could roll the other way, crawl, etc…).  Because of that, bedtime has always been easy for us.  We lay him down, on his back in the center of the crib and if it is nap, we come back 1.5 hours later and he is in the same place (usually talking to himself).  When we put him down at night, 8-10 hours later, we find him in the same position we left him, in the center of the crib, on his back.  We turn on the mobile and he watches it until he falls asleep.  Until yesterday, yesterday he learned to roll over from his back to his front and therefore to sit up on his own and pull himself up in the crib.

And guess what?  It made me sad.

Not sad because naptime will be harder (it will be).  Not sad because we had to lower his crib (we did). But sad because it means my baby is growing up.  We had to take down his mobile, for now he can grab it.  Last night, when I got home from work, I went to peek in on him sleeping.  Sweet baby boy, for the first time ever, was sleeping on his belly, booty in the air, on top of the covers.  He was sleeping like that because he played around in his crib, with his new found freedom, before he fell asleep.  And, for the first time, this mommy realized that the ‘baby phase’ is going to be sorely missed.  That it does kind of ‘fly by’.  It kind of brought a tear to my eye and for the first time I realized that before I know it, he is going to be a big boy, so I should cherish the baby moments I have left.  And so, I will try.  That is it for today!  Happy Thursday!