Mr. Independent

Dennis was very busy with his own agenda today. I had an eye appointment this morning, so I didn't spend any time with him until after lunch. I think he'd already written me off for the day, though, because he played pretty well independently of me. He'd come over to me every once in a while and smile, and then he'd go to the door and say "Daddy". Or he'd pull at the window blinds and say "Daddy'. See, he knew Daddy was right next door, working on the new screened porch at Grandma's lake house.

I did take him outside to see his Daddy, and this made him very happy. But it was hot and muggy, and Dennis and I don't much like hot and muggy, so we came back in. At this point, he started picking up random objects to use as 'telephones' to call his daddy. First he held the remote control up to his ear and had a conversation with Daddy, but he dropped it somewhere and instead picked up his tube of diaper ointment and called Daddy on that instead. He was so funny walking around with a yellow tube of Burt's Bees ointment held to his hear, chattering away to his Daddy. Mostly his conversation went like this:

"Dadeeeeee. Hey. Shoe. Shhhhhh. Bah. Gree. wababa en."

-pause-

"Koooo. Daddy. Car. Baahaaaa. Cold. Coe. Bye."

-pause-

"Hey dadadada Daddeeeeeeee."

Though I tried to play with him, I didn't get much interaction today. I did chase him around some and tell him I was going to get him. This cracks him up, and he runs from me when I do this, and when I catch him, I tickle him. He just howls with glee. We only played this game a few times before he was back in his Little Tikes car, driving himself over to the door to call out for Daddy again.

He didn't call for Daddy constantly all day, however. There were long periods of time where he just walked laps around the cabin, trying to get into the babyproof places. He tried all the cabinets again, put some more fingerprints on the new stove, tried the bathroom door, and went to the front door and opened it to bang on the storm door. He kept going into the room with his pod, so I presumed he needed a nap. But that nap was going to be on his terms and not mine, because whenever I tried to put him down, he didn't sleep long. He woke up and demanded freedom.

He played his own games today, scattering his menagerie of animals about, finding food particles he dropped earlier, driving or pushing his car around, and figuring out how to move the rocking chair so he could open the glass entertainment center door so that he could play with the tv receiver with the neat blue light on it. He didn't want my help playing, and he didn't want me to pick him up. So I basically observed all afternoon, occasionally naming whatever object he was interested in or holding onto at the time.

When Daddy came in for water breaks, I became completely unimportant. Daddy got the hugs and Daddy got him successfully down for a nap. I wonder if he misses the days he spent with just Daddy while Mommy was at work. Mommy hasn't worked in 2 weeks now, not at Walgreens anyway (I wouldn't say that what I've been doing hasn't been hard work), and he might be missing his guy time. I'm glad they spent the morning together. My one concern about our new arrangement was that I might be depriving the two of them from each other's company. Not so, since we've been accompanying Daddy to the job site this week and seeing him when he takes breaks. David is an incredibly wonderful father, and I am so glad that Dennis gets to be with him so much. I'm glad we're both around to watch Dennis grow through this incredibly cute and fun phase in his life.