I realized this weekend that Little Man is truly growing up, and it has brought me a lot of mixed feelings. I love to see him explore, and realize that he can do so much, but I miss him being my little baby. It is difficult to sit back and let him do his thing, but I know in the long-run, it is for the best, and will teach him independence.

Saturday afternoon, while we were relaxing after packing up our things for our upcoming move. We had a podcast playing in the background, and Little Man was sitting on the floor, playing with his trucks. He came over to me, grabbed my hand, and tugged. I looked at Squatch, and shrugged, getting up off the couch, following Little Man to see where he would lead me. We walked into the kitchen, around the island, down the hallway, to the bathroom, where he stood, looking for a few seconds, before pulling me into the bedroom. He walked over to the table with his diaper things in it, pointed to it, and then walked to the bed, trying to climb up. I grabbed a diaper and the wipes, threw him on the bed, and he smiled. Little Man pooped, and let me know in his new, grown-up way that he needed a clean butt. For the past month or 2, as soon as he poops, he’s come over to me, letting me know in some way or another that he had a poopy butt that needed to be cleaned; this was the first time he was so adult about it. Since then, he’s come over and grabbed at my shirt, or grunted at me, to let me know about his stinky butts, and done the hand holding and walking to the bedroom twice more. Once we move, we will start working on potty training.

After this, Squatch and I watched him quietly playing on the floor with his trucks again, and discussed how he is truly growing up in front of our eyes. He wants to eat everything we eat, the way we eat it (fork and knife? Ahh!); he wants to get himself dressed (he’s a great helper, but not quite at that point); he wants to explore and do things his own way. It blows my mind to think that one year ago, he was only three months old; 12 months has flown in the blink of an eye, and my baby is now a toddler who is growing in leaps and bounds.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how happy I am to let him grow at his own pace (no matter how much I wish he stays my little boy). He is learning in his own way, and I’m more than happy to step back, letting him explore. We went to the park this morning, after picking up a few things at WalMart in town. After putting on his shoes, I put him down, and said, “Let’s go play! There are swings and slides!”, and watched to see what he would do as I shut the door and locked the car. He did not even look back at me, and just took off running down the path. I smiled and slowly walked past him, seeing how he was exploring a new place. He confidently walked towards the playground, venturing into the pavilion with all the picnic tables, before getting to the edge of the sidewalk, where it dropped a bit down to wood chips. As I came up behind him, Little Man slowly put his right hand up, and looked back for me as I reached out and took it. Smiling, he carefully took the step down into the wood chips, holding my hand a bit longer as he got his footing on this new ground.

He did not immediately go to the slides or swings. Instead, Little Man wandered around the entire park area, looking up at the trees, peeking into the pool, investigating the skate park, and then came back to the playground. He was not sure what to do, so I walked up the ramp in front of him. After a few steps, I stopped and looked back. The mischievous grin on his face as he raced forward was all the reward I needed. We went down a few slides, and did a lot of exploring around the playground until I could tell he was getting tired; it was nap time, after all. He did not want to go, but I let him sit in the driver’s seat of the car and have a snack and drink some water.

He still needs me, for a lot, and he will still need me for a while yet. I know the day will come where he will not look back or reach for my hand, and that is ok. I will cry about that later, when he cannot see. Until then, I’m going to enjoy each and every moment with my baby; he can grow up as fast or as slow as he likes.