Gah!

I miss posting, I miss ranting and raving and poking fun and venting and observing and reporting. But here I am! Things happen throughout the week where I'll say to myself gah, must blog about that!, but of course I've forgotten it all by the time I can sit down to actually type.

First, work. Still love it. There's that slightly awkward vibe going on the first few weeks of any job, when you're the new guy and you have to feel out your co-workers. You kind of have to test their limits and see what kind of senses of humor they have before you go cracking jokes that could technically get you fired or say your first curse word aloud when your computer freezes up, you know, those kinds of things. Fortunately everyone in my office is too freaking cool for words and we all drum to the same beat. I couldn't be happier, I couldn't ask for more. I feel really, REALLY lucky.

2nd, Ethan: good gravy, y'all. One minute he is an angelic shimmer of light sent down from the heavens above, the next he's a hungry, violent, LOUD little gremlin that I will do almost anything to appease. When he's up, he's up. When he's down, look out! Angel E can color and count and make animal noises and feed himself with utensils and melt my heart with a single smile. Evil Ethan likes to hit me and anyone else that gets too close to him, flails about like a newly caught catfish and is capable of screaming so loudly that I repeatedly comment to Drew oh my, how very loud he screams. It shocks me every time. If we're in the car and he starts to get fussy and lets out one of his blood curdling cries, my ears actually ring. There there, little fellow. Mommy and Daddy CAN HEAR YOU, YOU'VE MADE IT QUITE CLEAR THAT YOU ARE UNHAPPY SO WHY WITH THE SCREAMING AND THE SCREAMING AND THE SCREAMING!?

He's getting to the point at daycare where the other tots will wave bye-bye to him when he leaves in the afternoon, like he actually has friends. He has more friends than me and D combined. And they're all so cute and stumpy in their own little ways. When it's my turn to pick him after work, I like to sneak outside where his class is usually at and watch him before he realizes I'm there. One day last week he was in the very back of the fenced-in play yard all by himself. There are play steering wheels attached to the fence, and he was twisting and turning them like he'd just stolen a cop car and was taking a wild, beer-fueled ride downtown. He reminds me so much of his daddy in so many wonderful ways. We bought him a sprinkler that also blows bubbles, aka the coolest toy in the entire world. He has a coloring book and loves to actually color now more than he likes to eat all the points off the crayons. He loves loves LOVES to read books. Bedtime is always a treat for everyone involved. No matter how fussy he might be, 99.9% of the time he totally chills for bedtime reading. His dad and I each read him a book, and he'll point and repeat everything we say, turn the pages, and recite the parts he knows with a big toothy smile, every time.

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that no matter how busy I am and how much I miss spending every day with Ethan, the quality of our time together now is so much better. I look forward to sitting on the living room rug with him to read a book, to brushing his tiny little pearly whites after his bedtime snack, to showing him how to put pieces in a puzzle. I will admit that after a long weekend of tantrums and face batting and general unhappiness, I probably drive to daycare a little bit faster than usual on Monday morning to drop him off. But I probably drive even faster to get back to him at the end of the day, when my heart inevitably aches for peanut butter in my hair and snot on my shoulder. Things are good.