Just Say Daddy!

Tom is relentless in his calling me. Right now the soundtrack to his life is  Momma! It’s really cute the way he calls me Momma. There’s always an urgency and a tinge of entitlement in his tone. 

What’s not cute though is how he always seems to call me for all the sucky stuff. I get called to clean up questionable goo and to  change bipers (diapers), as Tom calls them, or to  fish out crayons from the toilet. Daddy never gets summoned for anything. No,  he’s way too cool for that. 

Daddy’s there for fun stuff like  piggy back rides, jaunts  to Home Depot and hours spent pigging out on cheese crackers and  apple juice while watching Treehouse T.V.  Ok so I’ve done a good job ballyhooing your sympathies and the appropriate “Oh I know,” and “Go figure,”  and “Mom’s always the bad guy!” But the score was so wonderfully evened the other day. 

I’d had a rough time getting Tom to sleep. You know those times when no amount of singing and cooing and rubbing of backs and tummies and hugging and kissing will settle them down. He just would not go to sleep that day and I was at the point where I was tired and irritable myself. Usually when Tom has a hard time falling asleep he has a hard time staying asleep. I can expect to be get up 3 or 4 times throughout the night to soothe him back to sleep. At these times I always look over at Aleck blissfully asleep and  not making any attempts to take a turn at putting Tom back down, (even though his side of the bed is closest to the nursery-just saying!) 

One time Tom woke up in the middle of the night and Aleck nudged me and said  “Umm he’s calling you, I’d go but I don’t want to confuse him.” Really! Anyways that day at three in the a.m. my lovely Tom woke up to yell, “Daddy!” If you were listening in in my room you would have heard my giggle in the backdrop of Aleck’s shocked “What!” I turned over and nudged Aleck to say, “Umm he’s calling you, I’d go but I don’t want to confuse him!” 

I wish if only...

So its official we have a toddler in the house! We woke up one day and our quiet serious little man had transformed into a chatty, curious, running, jumping , scratching, screaming biting little monkey!

When I was pregnant, Aleck and I would spend hours talking about how we thought our son would look and what sort of personality he’d have and the kinds of things he’d do and like. When he was born and we first saw him he was nothing like we could have imagined really. Not that anyone can imagine a miraculous moment as that. Its not as if I know what I expected but somehow he was not what I expected. 
Mostly because I never actually expected an actual baby. Funny right. No but really the whole experience of being pregnant was somewhat surreal for me so that I had never fully grasped the reality of my son’s birth. Of course the universe having such a sense of humour soon grounded me into the reality of diaper changes, non-stop crying and constant feeding. I remember  watching him sleep and play when he was just a few weeks old and saying how much I couldn’t wait for him to smile and clap his hands for me. Then he smiled for the first time and I couldn't wait for him to sit on his own. If he could just sit on his own and play I would say to  Aleck, then  at least I’d be able to put him down and do some work. So he sat and played with his toys. Then  I was heard to complain about his right foot maybe being a problem- it was hindering his crawling. If he could just learn to turn that right foot and crawl I’d be so much better off,  because then he could follow me around and I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving him alone unattended. 
Of course my trooper crawled and eventually walked so his mom could walk him to the park without having to worry about having to push him around in his bulky stroller. Today I found myself  wishing yet another milestone upon Tom and stopped myself. I’m always pushing him onto the next new skill and worrying about whether or not he’ll be able to develop at the right pace. But really in all honesty Tom is own person . He is a happy little boy going about his exciting new world. 
He smiled and clapped and sat and crawled and walked and ran in his own time in his own way. And really that’s how it should be. So all I shall and should do is bask in the glory of having being blessed with a healthy happy über adorable son who right this moment cupped my face and said momma!