Where's the Kleenex?

I returned to work in October after five marvelous months of maternity leave. When I first went back, The King hardly noticed I was gone. He never made a fuss when I left in the morning and usually stared at me blankly when I returned home. As you probably guessed, I was not thrilled about The King's lack of excitement and affection.

Fast forward nearly two months later and The King is an entirely different little boy. I can't believe how much has changed.

The bad news first; he now whines and fusses when I leave. I feel awful for him but our sitter, Meg, tells me that he's usually fine after a few minutes and completely forgets I'm gone. Sad for me, great for him.

The good news and best part of this whole working mama gig, he is SO darn excited to see me when I get home now. You know that reaction your dog has when you get home from work? Wagging tail, panting, drooling, jumping and barking? Like, "where have you been all my life, I have missed you so much, I couldn't stand another second away from you, pet me, pet me, pet me!"

If The King was a dog he'd act just like that.

Today was a new level of excited though and the whole point to this post. Normally, Meg stands with The King in front of the window so he can see me pull in. She helps him wave and I stand in the middle of the driveway, like an idiot, waving back...at her. Then they meet me at the door and I get a smiling, happy baby, grabbing for his mama.

I love so much that she does this by the way.

Well today I snuck into the living room and found them playing on the floor. I said "Hello" and The King snapped his head around to see me, grinned ear to ear, and then CRAWLED over to me. That's right. He crawled over to me and whined for me to pick him up.

Cue the waterworks.

I have never been so happy, excited, terrified and sad all at the same time. It definitely wasn't a very coordinated crawl and was really pretty ugly but that's not the point. He crawled.

(practice round over the weekend)

I can't believe that my little boy has grown so fast. I was looking at pictures of him from this summer and it made me so sad. You really don't realize how little and perfect they are when you're trying to survive on four hours of sleep and PB&J sandwiches.

I wish I could stop time and just live in this moment for a little while. Every day he is learning something new and I'm so proud of him. It's really just so amazing to watch them turn into little people.

You can bet that I rocked and snuggled The King an extra couple lullabies tonight. He nestled right into my neck like he always does and I breathed in that yummy baby smell with a full heart. I'm scared that I'm going to wake up one day and all of this will have passed me by so I made a promise to slow down. Stop and smell the roses, ya know?

I've also promised to rock The King to sleep until he's 40. My sincerest apologies to his future wife.