*Le sigh*

The past couple nights my baby boy had some troubles sleeping. A few times too many he woke up screaming as if afraid, and I darted in to comfort him. As I rocked Max in the glider chair and sang softly in his ear I was struck by how big he was in my arms. I had this brief flicker of a memory: rocking his newborn self in my arms, with his tiny floppy head nestled in my neck. The length of him then only reached halfway down my chest. And now? When his sweet face is turned toward my neck, his hands reach around my shoulders, and he sits froggy style across my lap. He now weighs more than three times what he weighed when we brought him home from the hospital. I surprised myself by shedding a few tears. Not particularly sad tears (as in "whoa is me") of losing my baby, but a realization of how fast time flies... How little time we actually have together. In what will seem like a flash of lightening my baby boy will not want to cry his tears on my shoulder, or let me hold him to comfort him. I do not want to forget these moments. I try hard to take visual snapshots of my time with Max as he is now, and in each stage. Precious memories of a grateful life.

This morning after bath time I hoisted the little guy onto the counter and did the emotionally painful task of cutting off sweet baby curls. Ushering Max into toddler-dom, it seemed. I have held off cutting his hair because it took the boy so much time to get real hair in the first place. That, and I so much love those velvet-soft blonde curls that crown his head and sway in the wind. I like to nuzzle my face into them as I feed him his bottle before bedtime. But this week three different strangers commented to me when we were out on errands that I had such a "Beautiful baby girl... or boy? or girl?" Max's beautiful eyes and lashes alongside a mop of curls was looking a tad too feminine. I knew it was time. Ah, time...