Author: papa

it’s my shift tonight, as it was last night, and I have to confess that I checked on my little one.

I can pretty much guarantee that anybody who is a parent has checked on their baby once or twice for no other reason than to still their own thoughts. being a parent, I fall into that category. it’s not everyday, and certainly not every hour, but at least once a week I check on her.

I walked into the room, leaned close, and as I did, she made the softest little moan of content you could ever imagine. it was the reason I walked in there, and having my needs met, I gently touched my head to hers and walked out.

Continue reading “checking on the little one”

I’m sitting here at work, watching my picture frame flip through pictures of my little girl, and came to a strange realization…   she’s not as cute as I thought she was when she was younger.

It may be (and probably is) because she has become so much more adorable, but it is strange to look at pictures of her as a teeny infant and think, hmmm…  not quite as cute as I remember. It may be because I mentally photoshop her current face, mannerisms, and personality onto a smaller body and when I look at younger pictures of her, they’re not what I have in my head, and the difference is what is throwing me, not that she’s not as cute, just different.

But don’t get me wrong, she has been, and always will be the cutest baby I’ve ever seen…  it’s just my memory of her is changing, as most memories do over time.

It’s a good thing cameras were invented.

Now someone just needs to invent a way to capture the smell of the moment along with the image, then when you go back and look at the image, you can smell it, too. Because, as you may have noticed, whenever you smell something from your past, the memory becomes so much more vivid, and real. So much so that you are practically transported back to the moment, with all the emotions, faces, thoughts, and everything else that goes with it. Time travel is possible, you just need to find the right smell.

But I digress. Point is… my little Skyeberry, cute as she was, was not as adorable as she is now, and is getting cuter and cuter all the time.

I heard her laugh for the first time yesterday, and not just the little ‘heh’ that she puts out sometimes (which is pretty cute in itself), but a full-on laugh!  Chels had told me that she heard her laugh a couple of days ago, and I was understandably a bit jealous that I missed it. Then I was holding her on my lap as I do, and was doing nothing more than talking with her and squishing her cheeks (and why wouldn’t you, have you seen them? they’re so squishable) and she was smiling more and more, and then it happened. I couldn’t believe it, it was so adorable, I couldn’t help but laugh, which scared her a bit, but then I stopped, and started squishing her cheeks again, and she did it again!  That was it, I lost it, I was laughing so hard, it was hilarious. She didn’t laugh again, but she gave me a few more smiles.

My amazing little girl got a sense of humor finally, although I’m still not sure what triggers it. As soon as I find out though…

Our little girl is approaching 3 months and it’s amazing how much she has changed. She used to be so teeny…  so small and skinny. So much so that it’s hard to imagine/remember how small she was before now. I look at pictures of her back and how wrinkly it was, and how it’s not wrinkly anymore and I miss it. It’s hard to understand how you can miss something that you can’t exactly remember, I just know that it’s different and I know I miss it. I wouldn’t change her as she is now—she’s much better behaved, not quite as intolerant of anything even remotely uncomfortable, and she has a personality now, and you can actually interact with her—I’d just make her smaller, like when she had the wrinkly back. It was so amazingly soft. I’m a little bummed I didn’t spend more time touching it. If I could just revert her to how she was right after she was born…  if only for a moment. But I guess that is the wish of most parents.

You could spend your life trying to get back the moments you lost, but then you’d miss the moments you have.

Stop growing, little one.

I had my first father’s day this weekend, and Chelsea got me a digital frame that I put a bunch of photos of Skye, Chelsea and a few others just to fill space on, and I think I’m gonna have to take it back or something…

I just sit here all day looking at my cutesy little family and smile all the time, my productivity has dropped at least 50% (the blog doesn’t help either).  I seriously lucked out with all of them. Skye is so amazingly beautiful, that I find myself looking at her, and forgetting what I was doing at the time, if it was anything besides looking at her at all. She has started to show an inkling of personality and a few smiles, and it’s so awesome. It’s strange how it’s the littlest things that endear her to me. Sometimes she’ll yawn with her little crooked yawn and my whole body just melts. I love her little crooked bottom lip. And how she gets super excited when we walk in and put her on the changing table (her favorite place to be), and I’ll get halfway through changing her diaper, and start to read her a book (sometimes, it’s the only time she’s not screaming).  I’ll also sit her in front of me, propped up on my legs and just have conversations with her, while she looks at me like she knows. And I tell her about all the things that I’m going to teach her, and think of all the things shes going to teach me, and how much fun we’re going to have together.

And then there’s Chelsea, the most amazing girl I’ve ever met. I mean, she has a tattoo of a Star Trek Communicator, how much cooler can you get?  And she gets me, and I get her. We finish each other’s thoughts all the time. I’ll say something, and she’ll say “I was just thinking that!”, or vice versa. Or she’ll look at me questioningly, and I’ll give her the answer she was looking for, before she even asks it. Or I’ll look at her, and she’ll slide the drink I wanted over to me, without me even asking for it. It’s spooky someimtes. And although we have sleightly different tastes in books, movies, music, and TV shows, for the most part they are pretty darn close, and the things that I never would have considered, she has opened my eyes to. And she’s beautiful on top of all that. Always has been. I have a few photos of her on my frame, and every time they pop up, I just stare and think, “Wow”.

So I’m sitting here at work, and looking at the pictures from the previous post (OMG, I love that one of her in her little hat) and the pictures on my desk and seriously missing my little girl.   I love to just sit and hold her and, if she’s not screaming, just hold my forehead against her forehead and have little moments with her. I find myself spending most of my time home just torn… I still want to do the things I did before she arrived, but I still want to spend time with her. If she would allow it, I would love to plop her in the front carrier and sit at my computer and do some coding, looking at her whenever I needed to. But she would never go for that, unless she was asleep. So I take the time that I can, and just have to accept that I can’t see her all the time.

I’m not sure how Chels is going to handle it when she goes back to work. If she missed the dog as much as she did when she was at work, how is she going to handle being away from her snugglebug when she’s been home with her for three months?

I still miss them both though.