My baby isn't a baby anymore...

For the last several months baby boy has wavered between being a baby and a toddler. Then, quite suddenly, he stopped being a baby.

He had two successful pees on his potty.

His hair began to grow, covering up the last of his baby baldness.

He developed a new set of dimples (now he's got four of them!)

Full sentences abound!

He's started saying "sorry" when he misbehaves.

When I tell him "no" he now asks "why?"

He can now sit at the table a draw pictures by himself for more than five minutes at a time. He used to draw in fleeting scribbles on his way across the room....

Although he hasn't mastered riding a tricycle, he's figured out the mechanics of it. He's trying out the pedals, and it's only a matter of time before he's off and racing.

Heck he even bit the bottom off of an ice-cream cone yesterday. If that isn't initiation into toddlerhood I don't know what is. The very fact that we trusted him enough to hold an ice-cream cone -- unassisted -- indicates how much he's matured. While he's always been allowed "bites" of our ice-cream, we've never trusted him enough to pilot the cone by himself, knowing this could be a messy proposition. But yesterday, there he was sitting independently in an adirondack chair...just like a big boy. So we gave him my half-eaten cone and watched him take careful bites around the edge until temptation got the better of him and he just had to turn that cone over and take a bite from the bottom.

As much as I look forward to him becoming a little boy, I can't help but mourn the loss of my baby. Part of me was hoping that he would stay a baby forever.

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A promise is a promise. A couple of Sundays ago, we asked the little guy if he would like to go on a bus ride. We thought this would be a good activity since he's completely obsessed with buses these days...

However, our day didn't go according to plan. Between running errands, and his afternoon nap the day just seemed to disappear. All of sudden, it was time to leave for a friend's house for dinner and we hadn't gone for our bus ride. As I was loading him into the car, he looked at me with his big blue eyes and asked, "Bus?" For several blocks he repeated himself over and over again.

Hubby and I felt heartbroken. We had told him we were going for a bus ride and hadn't delivered on our promise! So we decided to make good on our word. Hubby dropped us off at the bus stop, and arranged to pick us up at the end of the bus route.

We accidentally got on the milk run route. This, of course, didn't bother the little guy. At first he was a little freaked by the whole bus scene. All the strangers getting on and off. Once he got used to it, he got really excited and started enjoying himself. So much, in fact, that he hasn't stopped talking about bus. Every day he says "Ride the bus? Ride the bus?"

Although I'm glad we kept our promise that day, I think we've created a monster. We took him on a second bus ride with a twist. We transferred on to the train. If the bus was exciting, the train was mind-blowing! We still hear a lot of requests for bus rides, but even more for train rides.

When he's a teenager complaining about having to take the bus, I'll have to recount this story....