As you all probably know Mary left last Sunday at 2:00pm. Her leaving was grueling, for her and I both. We thought that by the end of a long month together we would be ready for a vacation. Things could not have been any more the contrary. Mary and I have been together for at least eleven years and we have been married seven, but in that one month my love and respect for Mary grew more than all the others combined.
I know all of this is supposed to be about Caleb coming to Chattanooga, but me falling more in love with his mother is a part I can’t pass up talking about. I never suspected that we would miss her as much as we do. Caleb and I still go on our long walks twice a day, but they
are not the same without mom. And Caleb and I still spend hours in the evening dancing to Ben Harper and Jack Johnson, but going to bed is not like it was when Mary could hold and rock him. In this case the bond between mother and child was instant. It’s obvious that Caleb is missing her as well. I think Caleb feels that I’m his play buddy, and that’s fine and all but when, he is teething and tired of all the play it his mother he wants. You can see that he is missing her during a bottle when he pushes it away and look around the room for her. It’s been hard on both of us Caleb has not stopped looking for her, and I have not stopped missing her. What I saw during our time together was my wife turn into a mother. Not just any mother, but one that has wanted mother hood for a long time, finally she is rewarded with the most wonderful child we could imagine. Mary’s leaving was tough, I remember coming back up to my room in the hotel and hearing the door shut behind me. Caleb was napping and I sat down on the couch and I began to feel the fear that I was going to be solo for three weeks, the sadness of knowing I would not see Mary for three weeks, and angry that we had made the decision for Mary to leave and go home, and the joy that I’m now a dad. All of these things at once, that’s a lot of feeling for a man, we are normally limited to one feeling at a time. I sat there for a while. Then it was time to start packing.
The next day (Monday) was moving day. Now those of you who have been in the single parent roll for any length of time know that trying to get us packed and moved while taking care of Caleb was no small feat for a day one single dad. We did however manage and we have since settled in quite well. We are on the opposite end of town, much closer to the Cottage and Cathy’s apartment. We are up on the fourth floor (no elevator), which is fine except that using the stroller is out of the question. The steps are too narrow to try and get Caleb and Stroller down them or back up. I have gotten quite good at using the
snuggly that Jon and Ginger gave us before we left. Caleb seems to enjoy facing forward where he can see all that is happening. One thing that I can’t get over is that when Caleb and I go for our walks not much is said. I don’t do any talking because I don’t want to draw attention to us. And Caleb…well he can’t talk, that is until he sees a girl about Mary’s height with brown hair and then he goes crazy, he starts trying to jump off of my legs out of the
snuggly, he says things like
aagghh,
agggghhh, and
hhhaa,
hahah. This in Caleb’s language mean’s “ hey look”, “look over here”, “hey there’s mom”. Caleb does not care if the woman is old or young or pretty or ugly, he only cares about her approximate height and color of hair. Needles to say the woman normally stops and begins talking to Caleb, they have yet to pay me any attention. We normally walk for about an hour we go to the fountain and stare at the water. Caleb likes the noise it makes and he likes to see the water moving.
The apartment has been a good change. It has been nice to have a kitchen as well as a washing machine. I spend most of my time reading, cleaning and doing laundry. Being Mr. mom has been an interesting change. When we first got Caleb he was not sleeping through the night, which was fine, because Mary would get up and take care of his bottles and diaper changing’s. Well since Mary’s leaving I started doing the night routine; bottle at eleven, diaper at three, second bottle at five, and up with the sun. The problem is that I had I don’t fall back to sleep, Caleb does, but I just lay there, listening to Caleb dreaming and the cars outside. After three nights with no sleep to speak of Caleb and I had a very serious conversation that looked like this.
“Caleb” I said “there are pros and cons to just about everything in life, tonight I want to discuss the pros and cons of you coming to live with us”.
Caleb said “
ggggg”.
I said “ the pros are that you now have a mommy and a daddy that love you very much, you get to play with me whenever you want and you don’t have to stay here in this town you get to come back to the state’s”.
Caleb
didn’t say anything he just raised his left eyebrow as if to say “so go on, give the bad news”.
I said “The cons are that I’m not getting up during the night anymore to give you a bottle” Caleb again said nothing. I said “ you might think during the night is a good time to have a bottle, but it’s not”.
I pause to give the little bugger a chance to argue but again he said nothing. “During the night when you are crying for a bottle I want you to know it is not a reflection of how much I love, or care. It’s just that I have got to start sleeping.” I asked him if he understood how much I loved him”.
He nodded his head (with my help of course).
Well no more sleepless nights for me, we both are now sleeping through the night not one single problem. It’s good we are getting all that sleep, because Caleb is now pulling himself up on to stuff. This has changed the way I spend my days. Now I’m chasing after him making sure he
doesn’t break something or hurt himself. He can crawl across the floor in no time flat. I think he is learning “no”, I sure do say it a lot. I have tried to have several more conversations with him like the one above, about things like not pulling the laptop off the table, or not pulling the telephone cord out of the wall, but it has not gone as well as our early talks. He has a lot more to say during these talks, but I feel like he’s not listening. I guess that’s what it will look like for a long time. As far as his personality, I don’t think we could be a better match. He is very impatient, he wants stuff as fast as possible, I think to him the most useful letters in the Alphabet will be ASAP he really won’t need the rest. I am constantly being pushed to do it faster, whether it is changing a diaper or making a bottle, he lays there and tells me to do it faster. The good news is we speak the same language. The only time when Caleb is not in a hurry is when he is in the bath. He loves the water, our baths last about a half hour, he is clean in about five minutes but he wants to stay and play in the water. I will normally strip down, and enjoy the time when we get to play in the water. I think we will need to buy a boat ASAP.
I’m sorry this is so long and I have not been doing it more often. Thank you all for your prayer and support over the last year. For those of you that have been close you know the details of good days and bad. What the Lord has given us has been well worth the wait. Continue praying for this single dad, and Caleb’s beautiful mother, that time will fly and we will be together soon.
Caleb is doing well. He says Hi and wants you all to know he will be home soon.
From Ethan and Caleb
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