My Baby is a Toddler...

This weekend I had that moment when I looked at Carter, not in the flesh but in a picture, and thought holy shi#, my baby is a toddler!  When I look at him I still see chubby thighs, baby feet, and tiny toes.  But Sunday morning I looked at a picture of him standing in his jammy top and a diaper and I realized how skinny his legs are now.  He no longer has those pudgy, roly poly, baby thighs.  They are thinned out, walking, talking toddler thighs.  It blew me away because I still see the pudgy thighs when I look at him in real life.  When changing his diaper I see that tiny remnant of a roll.  But in the picture that roll was barely visible.  I always joked that when Carter's chubby thighs thinned out I would cry.  And I honestly thought I was joking, but Sunday morning looking at his picture I got choked up.  There it was right in front of me, my baby transformed into a toddler.

Exhibit A

It didn't happen with his first birthday.  I didn't have that mental switch from baby to toddler.  When he started talking my mind was still in denial.  He transitioned from the infant room at daycare and I had a mini-meltdown, but still not because he had become a toddler in my mind.  Walking came and went and I hadn't gotten that emotional, my baby is a toddler moment.  Mostly because I didn't think of my baby as a toddler.  Then he started using utensils, nope still a baby.  But looking at his picture with no pants on, it's unmistakable.  My baby is a toddler.  It's just the honest to goodness sad truth.  He does so many things that are "grown up".  When he's hungry he walks to his high chair and shakes it.  When he's thirsty he walks to the refrigerator and reaches for the handle.  He full on talks now, not just babbling.  He says words we understand and also strings of words we don't understand, but I can tell mean something to him.  Last night I sat down to rock him and he slid off my lap, walked over to his crib, reached up on his tippy toes, fussed, and looked back at me.  It was the sweetest and most heart breaking thing all wrapped in one.  Luckily he cried the moment I put him in his crib, wanting me to pick him up and hug him for a moment, so my heart wasn't broken.  Now when I leave daycare he smiles, waves, blows kisses, and follows me to the door laughing and watching through the window only occasionally crying.  My little man is growing up.  Thank goodness he's so cute and sweet doing it!

Bye bye momma!