growing pains

Tomorrow, Dennis will be 14 months old, and though people told me how quickly the time would pass, I had no idea how correct they'd be. I barely remember the tiny little 7 lb. 7 oz. baby he was, the one who was cute from day one, the one who was so sweet and made all those funny faces and noises. Luckily, I have hundreds and hundreds of photos and some video clips of all that to remind me. Today when I was holding him, I studied the curve of his cheek and the soft roundness of his baby face, and I knew that I wanted to remember him that way forever. Just yesterday I looked into his face and saw that it was beginning to change, and that my baby boy was beginning to grow up. While I will miss so much the way he was and the way he is now, I can't wait to see what he'll be like in the months to come. Will he always be fun-loving and ready to smile and laugh, always ready to make us laugh? Will he keep his same loving, sweet personality? What will his first sentence be? I can't wait to find out.

I worked again today, so our time together was limited. We did share our lunch today. I was eating barbecue, and David was slicing cheese to send with me for a snack at work. We were at opposite ends of the lake house, and Dennis walked back and forth between us like we were his all-you-can-eat buffet servers. He'd take a bite of barbecue from me and then walk over to his Daddy and get a bite of cheese and then back to me and back to him. He probably burned off all the calories in his lunch just walking back and forth to eat it!

Tomorrow is my last day at my job. After that, Dennis will be my job for a while. I'm thrilled and terrified about it. I'm thrilled that I will get to spend my days with him. I'm terrified that I will not be as good at parenting him as David is. David is a wonderful father, and he seems to have nearly endless patience where Dennis is concerned. I am not known for my endless patience. What if I forget to teach him something important, like his colors, or his manners, or whatever? David will, for the time being, still get to see him a good bit, and I hope I can learn a few of his tricks. I have been with Dennis 4 entire days per week up til now, and small portions of the other 3 days, but after I have worked for several days in a row, I feel like I have to relearn how to be a parent. The two jobs require much different sets of skills! It takes me all of my off days to get into a comfortable parenting routine, and then it's time to return to work. I am looking forward to not having a bit of an identity crisis every week when I get off work and a crying spell when it's time to go back to work, though. That has been tough.

So, what will we do every day? Just being able to ask that question is incredible! I hope we have lots of fun exploring together in the coming months.