We Miss You Mommy!

 As many of you know, Holly is spending a month in Poland with her theatre company rehearsing at the Witkiewicz Theatre under the tutelage of one of its brilliant directors. Brock and I will be flying out to join them in a couple weeks, but for now it's single daddy time! 

So far Brock has been a real champ about the whole situation. He's used to being with just me for long stretches while mom is at work, and most of the time it's been exactly that smooth. I think the saddest I've seen him was while reading a poorly-chosen library book about baby animals. Every other page introduced the baby animals' mommies and asked lots of mommy-related questions. Brock kept looking towards the front door and looking sad. I decided that wasn't a very good book for me to read to him. A couple days later I realized that Brock can not read, so now it's a book about baby animals and their daddies. It's not his favorite book for sure, but it doesn't make him sad anymore. 

Our first webcam with mommy was pretty fascinating. The first two minutes were an ever-changing, indecipherable, tangled mess of emotion. He appeared to be simultaneously on the verge of weeping and laughing and neither. Eventually he cracked a big smile, and reached for mommy. Now he's all smiles when we webcam, though he will occasionally get bored of all the non-tactile conversation and wander off to stack things. 

Holly's parents are in town and have been real lifesavers hanging out with Brock while I'm at work and even making delicious dinners on the evenings they can stick around. It's good for Brock to finally have some time away from both his parents, and what better way to do that than with quality grandparent time? This morning was only the third day, and Brock's face lit up right when they came in the door. Of course, he also figured out that it means I'm leaving soon, so there were some tears involved too. 

It's been surprisingly fun getting to do nearly everything for Brock when I'm home. Certain Brock-tasks had inadvertently become split up over time between Holly and me. A simple thing like changing Brock into his jammies was something I never did anymore. Now I spend each twilight blowing raspberries on his chubby body (too rarely exposed in the daytime) and wondering why I would choose to miss it. Of course there are certainly some big downsides to being a single daddy: I'm much more tired all the time, and I quickly found out mommy does most of the cleaning around here (you're great Holly!), but most of all we just miss mommy's smiles and snuggles and company. We love you Holly!