Don't Feed the Drew Monster

Drew's starting to eat Big Boy Food. He's moving slowly into this world as he seems to have problems with certain textures other than the mashed and pureed consistencies he's used to. We weren't pushing him on this too much--until Momma had a blonde in distress moment after pulling him out of his old daycare. The new daycare provider had to experiment with food since I had neglected to provide her with his usual fare. He's now exploring the world of cookies and apples and cereal and crackers. Slowly but surely.

It's funny: a lot of folks mentioned how in the last round of Drew pics that he doesn't look like a baby anymore, how he looks like a toddler. I've noticed the changes as they've happened (usually by seeing how much more hair he has than he did before and how the appearance of teeth changes his looks), but they didn't give me a "my baby's growing up" pang. No, I got that when I went to pick him up from daycare one day and found him dwarfed in a high chair, gripping a regular-sized cookie that was bigger than his hand, and nibbling at it while kicking his legs. Damn near fell to the floor in tears at how old and independent he looked. I was tickled and proud and excited--and sad and terrified. It all moves so fast.

As I told my aunt (whose little one is about three months younger than Drew) before the daycare shuffle, I wasn't feeling the bittersweetness of Drew growing up as long as I could still hold him and comfort him after waking up from a nap or a bad dream or after getting an owwee. Now I cherish those moments when he needs them more than I ever did before. It won't be long before he doesn't need me in that way, before he's too big anyway. That's a good thing, and very necessary and natural and I'm honestly looking forward to watching Drew grow into the man he'll become. But watching Drew eat that cookie made me realize just how precious this past year has been despite all the missed sleep and spit-up stains and house rearranging and free time shuffling.

I never thought watching Andrew eat a cookie at eleven months old would generate this motherhood epiphany.