Growing Up

This has been a big week for Sam...

Last week, he started 'scooting' around on the floor to grab either a toy or the much coveted Cheerio. When I say scooting, I mean he looked like someone who had just lost their legs in battle, frantically trying to get back to the foxhole. A lot of people call this the marine crawl, but I prefer calling it "Lieutenant Dan."

Anyway, yesterday, Sam made the leap from scooting to full-fledged crawling. He discovered his knees. He'll only get better and better at crawling and his being mobile will surely change all of our lives. As if that wasn't enough for one week, he woke up this morning with a bottom tooth! Last night was kind of a rough one for him, as he woke up several times. He now has a bottom tooth that has just broken the surface, with the one next to it not far behind. Sam is growing up.

I can't tell you how excited and proud I am to see my baby boy grow and develop into a real kid. At the same time, I'm sad to see so many fun stages being left behind. I can't wait to watch him really grow up, but I would gladly spend the rest of my life holding him in the middle of the night and watching him slowly fall asleep. There's just nothing like seeing his big blue eyes fight to stay open so he can keep looking at me. I imagine that even if I live to be 100 years old, and someone gives me the chance to re-live part of my life, rocking Sam in the middle of the night will probably be at the top of my list.

That, and when I watched the series premiere of ALF. Wow...goosebumps.