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shift

playing with daddy before school
this is such an age of change for john - for all two-year-olds, i suppose, but he's the one i know the best!

next week he will be moved up to the two-year-old class at his daycare. that means no sippy cups at school - big kid cups instead! - and starting toward potty training with his peers. it means a new teacher, though john's been visiting with that class for a while and loves all the teachers at the daycare. it means more organized learning, which is awesome ... and crazy, since i still so clearly remember bringing my barely-six-pound infant to the baby room almost exactly two years ago when i started back to work after john was born.

but there is an even larger shift afoot, which i knew was coming ... since john was born, i've been assuring my husband, "a day is coming when mommy will be chopped liver and all john will want to do is follow daddy around. don't feel bad that he is so mommy-centered now ... the daddy show is coming!"

last night, john woke up crying in the middle of the night. screaming, really. and he wasn't screaming for mommy ... he wanted his daddy.

i brought john to our bedroom to snuggle daddy and then back to his room to go to bed, but he wasn't having it. i put him back down in his bed and figured he'd cry it out. but he continued to shriek, so daddy went to check on him ... and rocked him ... and put him down. and he cried again, but just for a moment, then drifted off to sleep.

i'm glad that john is leaning more on his daddy. he does, after all, have an awesome daddy who is thrilled to take care of him. and it's another step in growing up, that he doesn't HAVE to cling to mommy. that's all wonderful, right?

but there is a little bittersweet tug at my heart at no longer being the center of john's universe. and you experienced mommies out there, i know, i know ... it will only get worse from here as friends and school and ultimately jobs and a wife are more important than i am. and i know, john will always have a special place in his heart for mama. but humor me now, ok? this is his first step. and mine. and as they say, that first step's a doozy.

(she says with a tear in her eye.)
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