Easter 2023 vs Easter 2024 (2023 was one year ago today and 2024 was a week ago)

This morning Tadej woke up at 6am, waking me out of a deep deep restful sleep. I heard his cry and registered that it was the getting up cry and not the quick going back to sleep cry. So I pulled myself out of bed and went to get a bottle of milk for him in hopes that at least we could cuddle for a little while so that I could doze just a teeny tiny bit while he drank.

I got him out of the pack n play in our airbnb and cuddled him close. He wedged himself into my arms and took a hold of the bottle. He is in a really big, ‘I will hold this on my own,” phase with his bottle. This is just the beginning of all of the independence to come. He is now starting to really test what he can do on his own and what he still needs help with. Our little guy is pulling himself up on every piece of furniture and throwing things away when he can. He wants to do so many things on his own. He wants to reach and explore and climb and close doors and open everything.

We cuddled for a little bit until his bottle was done and he quickly wiggled himself to a different part of the little twin bed we were sitting on to climb down. I took off his sleep sack and off we go! It was a bit of a struggle to change the diaper but then we were climbing and playing and picking up and putting down and finding and reading and doing all sorts of things he knows he shouldn’t because we are far from home and the usual toys aren’t present.

By 9am when Ana’s alarm was going to go off, we were ready to get out of this apartment to explore. As he babbled and wiggled and ran and all the things I was ready for a break. Our little famly headed out to find breakfast in the world. We loaded him up into the stroller and today his gangly legs hung out because it is shorts weather today in Serbia. We got to the restaurant of choice and let him free to wander a bit before we could procure a high chair to at least contain him just a little. As we ate and he ate what we ate I found myself just watching him. Look at this little kid! Not so much a baby any more. He will always be our baby but he is full on toddler these days. His face shows all sorts of emotions and thoughts. He has opinions and wants things as he wants them. He doesn’t just eat what we give him but he has preferences and yeses and nos. I watched him watch another kid and the world happen before him. Sometimes I just watch him change before my very eyes.

It is an amazing world to watch through his eyes. And if I can get over myself long enough to stay in wonder, what joy it is to sit next to him!