Stumbling.

I’ve been struggling to remind myself that just because one child has done something for the first time that it still is a big deal when the second child reaches the same milestone fifteen months later. I can distinctly remember taking thousands of digital pictures, from every possible angle, of Taylor walking, running, stacking blocks, and even looking at towering cumulous clouds in our backyard. We have digital video of her doing, or attempting to do just about everything one can imagine¬¬¬– from her first squeaky coo to her furrowed reactions of meeting her brother for the first time– we’ve got it all stored on our .mac’s hard drive. With Simon, however, too often I take his physical and cognitive achievements for granted. I have to constantly remind myself that, if I am doing my job correctly, he is learning or being exposed to something new all the time. For example, just the other day I was putting him to bed when he began alligator rolling out of my arms. Instinctively I plopped him in his crib to keep him from being flung to the ground. This infuriated him! He leapt at the sides of the crib like a little madman, screaming like a tyrant. I had no idea what he wanted or what he was doing. The following afternoon, when I brought him to bed for his nap, he did the same thing. This time, however, he wriggled so much I was forced to lay him down to the floor. As he was rolling and sliding down my leg, a split second before I was about to drop him, he scrambled on all fours to his sound machine, deftly turned on the volume, and sat back on his hunches, and, with a sense of pride gleaming in his eyes, his face lit was a smile. I can’t tell you the number of times I almost dropped Simon because of all his squirming before being put to bed. I can’t tell you the number of times he must have tried to show me his new self-taught skill of turning on his noise maker. And I can’t tell you how many other things he can do or wants to do that I’ve missed because I’ve already seen his sister do it before and have not taken the time to watch him show me what he intends to do.

This must stop.

It’s not that I willfully ignore my son. No one can. He’s beautiful. Perfect. He’s a gift from God. But I know, I just know, I’ve disappointed and frustrated him more than once because I’ve failed to heed the tell-tail signs that he wants to show me something he has learned to do.

In an attempt to right my missteps, I’ve decided to cease watching television after Adrianne takes Taylor to bed. Simon’s bedtime is about an hour later than Taylor’s and has been, traditionally, the only time I am able to sneak in my TV fix and find out what’s going on in the world outside of the walls of our home. Now, instead, I devote the hour singularly to Simon. We read, we play; we do anything and everything he wants to do. The bonding has been priceless. Like being a stay-at-home father, I will never regret the little I miss doing what is right for our children. The hell with the world!– for right now. I have my little slice of heaven right here in my own house that needs a little bit more attention.