Birthday Boy

Being a toddler is totally overrated. Do not you agree? I've spent a lot of time and effort trying to talk Smitty Baby into staying a baby.

Don't you want to stay a little snack-sized armful for a bit longer?

You don't really want those teeth, do you?

Crawling beats walking anydangday. Especially when you have a fuzzy tiger face right smack on your crawling bum.

I'm pretty sure all the cool kids are still in 6-month sizes.

Are you SURE you don't want to put some of these developmental milestones off a bit longer?

These were the most well-reasoned of my many, many arguments. I've got more!

Nothing doing, he said.

The night before his birthday, after the whole house had gone to bed, I got him back out of his crib and held his fleecy-pajamaed little self and snuffed up his not-newborn-anymore smell. And cried real tears.

And I realized that, as much as I want my baby to stay a little baby, the things he's doing now are amazing too. The pigeon-toed bulldog crawl and tiny voice saying 'momom' of 11 months is just as adorable as the scrunch-faced stretches and curled-up legs of 11 days. And we certainly get more sleep, says the rational part of my brain. Yes, says the part that's crying the tears. Only you just can't rewind the crawling to the curled-up froggy legs. You can't take 23 pounds of wiggles and make it seem like 7 pounds of helpless in your arms.

But I wish I could. Oh how I wish.


Well, my love, my own, in spite of all my advice you went ahead and turned one anyway. But we could still hold off on the walking thing. Just a wee bit longer.