Faster

I swear John is aging 10 times faster than Tommy did. When Tommy was this age I spent every waking moment (his waking, not mine) with him. Learning and playing and crawling around on the floor.

John spends every waking moment with Tommy, and occasionally when Tommy goes to play with Grandma John plays with me. But I feel like I'm missing most of what he's doing.

One day I noticed that he was rolling all around, but I didn't anticipate and wait for it like I did with Tommy.

The next day (or so it seems) he was crawling and I noticed, but I didn't wait for it and watch him rock back and forth for hours before the real crawling started.

Last week I held his hands above his head to see if he'd take a (very well supported) step for the first time. This was the first time I'd ever done that. I swear with Tommy we did that as soon as he could hold his body up. I remember wrapping my hands around his middle and turning him side to side pretending he was walking. He couldn't have been more than 3 months old. When I did it with John last week, he got up on his tippie toes in a way most ballerinas train for years to do. Then he took the teeniest tiniest steps forward nearly landing the stepping foot on top of the standing foot.

It's amazing to me how much faster it seems to be going this time around and how much more I'm missing.

When Tommy was born Josh and I just kept doing everything together with him. We crowded around the bathtub so we could both give him a bath.
One of us would hold the camera while the other fed the baby because neither one of us could stand to miss even one single thing.

But now that there are two of them, we've learned to divide and conquer. My friend Jill explains it perfectly here. Our "us" is wildly different than it was. Instead of doing everything together we divide and conquer in almost every piece of the day.

Even Tommy helps with the dividing, spending loads of time entertaining (and chasing) John B. (Do you think we should legally change his name so John B makes sense? Sometimes I wonder...Part of me thinks that a person's name should be the same thing people call them...) But I feel like I'm missing it. John spends very little time away from me, but I feel like I spend very little time WITH him.

The worst part about it is that I suspect life will only get crazier and faster as it goes on.

So every now and then when I have a chance to take John (and only John) on a diaper date, I wouldn't miss it for the world.

He could take it or leave it - but I'm confident he'll learn the beauty of the soft pretzels and icees before long.

I love this boy with all my heart and resolve on a regular basis to stop missing his life. Someone please help me with that!