Time Marches On

Yesterday it suddenly hit me that my baby is gone and sometime in the last few months was replaced by a little boy. He's still a pre-toddler, but definitely isn't that tiny baby I first met. His face has lost most of its babyness, and he's starting to move his body more like a toddler than a baby.

Mostly, though, it's his personality. I don't remember him having much of a personality when he was really little, just little things like being comfortable on Daddy or wanting to sleep swaddled. Suddenly now he has all sorts of distinct preferences and dislikes. He surprises me every day with a new talent or a new facet of his personality. Today's was an innate ability to use the guilt complex to persuade me to give him parts of my lunch. No baby can deliberately assume that look of pleading and sorrow on his face. (By the way, it worked. He got a couple of bites to see what he was missing. I don't think he liked it much, as he immediately went back to his fruit puffs.)

I see him as a little boy when I watch him play. No longer does he merely bat at toys, but he grabs them and handles them with deliberateness and much greater delicacy. He shows a great curiosity about his toys too. I can just see what goes through his mind every time he grabs a toy (or any object that he deems a toy, such as the remote control): "And what will this one sound like when I bam it?" That thought is immediately followed by, "And now what does it taste like?" His almost complete lack of interest in toys from a few months ago has been replaced by an obsession with anything that he thinks looks like it might be fun to play with.

I'm expecting another explosion in his development soon too. He seems to be on the verge of many new talents, such as crawling and articulating more real words. Throw in his fussiness from the last few days that I don't think is completely caused by teething, and I expect him to surprise me with something new at any moment.

The new signal that he's growing out of his babyness that I'm most excited about is the waning spit-up. Just yesterday and into today, the volume of spit-up has decreased greatly. I can only remember one big spit-up in probably two days, and only a couple of little ones. I'm reluctant to put it in writing for fear that I'll jinx it, but I really think the combination of his medicine and his incredible growth and development over the past few days has finally gotten the problem under control, at least better than it ever has before.

I fully expected to miss having a baby around once I realized Patrick had grown out of that stage, but I'm finding that I really don't miss it. Sure, it would be nice for him to be as cuddly as he was when he first came home from the hospital, and for him to want to sleep on us like he used to. But if he stayed as a baby, I'd never get to know this perfect little boy he's growing into. I remember saying when Patrick was about six months old that I thought that was the perfect age. Yet every month I amend that statement in my mind; that month is the age I wish he could stay. I love him more each month with all the new changes that the month brings, and I couldn't imagine him being any other way or any other age.

Finally I downloaded the last few pictures off my camera--after taking more of Patrick yesterday afternoon.
Here's Patrick and Nana during the banquet on Thursday night, before he fell asleep on her.
Patrick is playing on the floor at Nana and Grandpa's. You can see Grandpa in the background. He had been playing with Patrick, mostly tug-of-war with that ring in his hand. (Sorry I don't have any better ones of you, Dad. This is the only one that turned out well at all.) Patrick is watching Nana here. I can't remember what she was doing that kept him so interested.


And these are the best pictures from yesterday of my little boy. He really does look like a little boy, not a baby, in that second picture, doesn't he? By the way, he was gritting his teeth in that picture, which explains the goofy expression on his face.