Just Us Fellas

Cal and I had the chance to spend some quality time together this weekend. Mama had some time to visit her friends for a little adult contact and do some scrapin'. He and I had a good time goofing off, picking on Scout, doing some Christmas shopping, and, of course, sitting around the house in our underwear. It seems that on days I am around when he wakes up, I am "in" with him. On regular work days he wakes up with Mama and when I get home he looks at his Papa like a stranger, "Well, where have you been all day, mister?" No big deal until, that is, nap time rolls along and he NEEDS Mama in order to get some sleep.

Today the little man and I went to Best Buy, Menard's, and Lowes (grunting inferred). I enjoy traveling with him...things usually take a little more time but I can get the stuff done that I need to get done without any of the guilt I normally feel when I am away from him (work aside).

He fought nigh-night time tonight and I had to go in and rock him. Priceless. On one hand I can understand the people who tire of the kid business because it IS constant thought and responsibility. But those things are not all bad. Tonight I was forced to stop and spend quiet time, holding and humming songs to my child in his darkened room. Then, his hands slowed their caress of the fabric of my shirt and he slipped off into sleep. So much. So great. So deep.

Like the beginnings of a sketch of a great mural: I see the potential, the future, the hope, the strength of this new human being. My palette of love and knowledge and wisdom and spirit ready to be applied to his life. M and I are, with God's help, shaping a new human being. I can't deny, though, that the little guy has as much shaping to do in our lives as we do in his. Even in the months that he has been in our lives, pre- and post-natal, we have made some changes and had some change forced upon us. This little science expedition, this trek down a new fun path, has reworked us in as many ways as we have constructed it. Cool.