Ch-Ch-Changes

Things have been pretty crazy lately. Not bad crazy, but hectic crazy. On Sunday, I went to what was scheduled to be Wiggle's last swim class, but luckily we are actually going to have one more since the instructor missed the first one. I promise to have C come to the make-up class, so we can get some pictures of Wiggle getting his swim on to put on the blog.

After class, in the locker room while I was putting on clothes, and Wiggle was escaping under the dressing room door to go pow-wow with a classmate, I realized what a fool I was not to get pictures on the first day. I had been telling myself that we didn't need to get pictures The First Day because each class would be pretty much the same, so who cares, right? Wrong.

What was my rookie mistake? Yes, the classes were pretty much the same from week to week, but Wiggle sure wasn't. Admittedly, most observers wouldn't notice his improvement on actual swim skills, but I had not factored in how different it would be to have a 7-month-old splashing the water and a 9-month-old doing the same thing. Let me tell you, it is a world of difference. But again, there will be pictures. I promise. Come hell or cold, chlorinated water, there will be pictures.

The whole swimming thing got me thinking about how much Wiggle has grown, and that got me thinking about having another baby. Hold up. Don't spit your soda just yet, I'm not ready for another one right now or even in the near future. But I do want there to be another one, and enough time has gone by now, and Wiggle has gone through enough changes, for me to realize how fleeting each of the previous stages were. I don't want to sentimentalize too much, and I know that when my second one is tucked up under my chin during that first wonderful, albeit sleep-deprived, month, Wiggle will be there too, coloring all over my new white bedspread*. But I still do want another first month, another whole set of firsts.

Now I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea, I am completely loving the right now I have with Wiggle everyday. It's just that some of the time it feels like the days just run into each other, one after the next. And then there are the days like today.

My dad told me that when I was a baby he used to think that elves came in and replaced me with a whole new version every night because that's how much I would change each day. Since I am with the babe most of the time, I only get glimpses of that same feeling, but sometimes something happens, and it just hits you. And tonight? While we were waiting for his dad to come home from work, and Wiggle was singing and banging his wooden spoon on the windowsill, and then he turned around, and he was standing? On his own? And he just kept standing as he waved his spoon around and grinned his impish grin at me? It hit me, hard.

The little boy is growing up a little more every day, and while that is the ultimate goal, of course, a very tiny part of me is already sad that he won't always break into a wide smile every time he sees me, or give me big, sloppy baby kisses on command, or even snuggle up close when he is tired or sad.

Right now though, I will go to sleep knowing that in the morning when he wakes up, he will be waiting for me with plenty of kisses.



*True story related to me by my mother. And yes, I was the guilty party.