?Ǭ†(He’s already 6 months old… all of you who are more experienced with this… know that I now join you in being teary watching my baby grow up…)

A while back, I read this post.

Go on, go read it … if I’m borrowing her words I’ll feel okay with it if ya’ll go read what she said first….

Okay. You’re back. Excellent.

When I hold Alex close, I keep looking for the pie smell to him. It’s not so much dessert pie to me… but he’s definitely mine, and I now think of that smell as pie …

Today I sat on the couch, while he napped on me. Because this is the way that he’s rolled when it’s come to naps this week. I watched his red cheek rise and fall with our breathing. I smelled his baby pie-ness. I though about sleep training. I thought about all the people who would roll their eyes at me letting this great big 6 month old sleep on me. All the people who would warn me about bad habits and didn’t I ever want any sleep and wasn’t my marriage simply going to collapse because he’s not a champ sleeper. I wondered if we should work on night weaning, I wondered if we should start solid routines to get him to independent sleep.

Then I thought about how this one little boy has filled our life so completely that we don’t plan to have another one. How each day that passes is a day that we won’t repeat. How each new first is a first and last of what we will celebrate a child of ours accomplishing.

I thought about how we plan to do this once. Once.

I buried my nose gently his baby smell. I decided that in 5 years or 2 years or 3 hours when he’s too busy to sit on my lap, or look at me, or notice I’m in the room, that I’ll never regret this hour on my couch, holding the baby close, knowing he’s safe, acting as pillow, being the mom.