Five Days

February has been a big month for our family. Jim and I went on a magical vacation to Venice, a trip we have planned since before I was even pregnant with Beckett. It was an incredible, whirlwind five days, but by the end of it my entire body ached to see my baby. It was hard to leave him but I think that it was a good test for all of us. Beckett was no worse for wear, and actually seemed tragically (for me at least) unaffected by the entire experience. He settled into his routine a mile away at my parents' house without batting an eyelash. I know this because after making free wi-fi a criteria for our Venetian apartment search, we lugged our computer to Europe and tried out Skype for the first time. It's fabulous! How did parents travel without their children before the internet? He had no idea what was going on but we got to coo and squeal and just look at him for fifteen minutes a day, which was enough to settle this mom's fears that he wasn't somehow forever traumatized by my disappearance.

I did have my moments. I'd prefer not to admit that I had a crying jag at the end of our first evening, after attending an extraordinary carnevale party at a private palazzo on the grand canal. I felt bad for having such a good time, guilty for being happy when he was so far away. I fought back tears when he banged his head on the coffee table while we skyped, and I could hear his heartbreaking sobs but couldn't be there to make him feel better. The last day was tough, and I have to admit to shedding a few tears over insalata caprese and marinated anchovies (delicious!) while my lunch companions tried not to notice.

But eventually we came home and rushed off the plane and scurried over to his daycare and flew in the door with huge silly grins on our faces. He looked at us with an expression that said something between "Hey! I forgot about you guys!" and "Are you expecting me to do something?" When I picked him up, he reached for the teacher, which broke my heart just a little bit but I deserved it for abandoning him so oh well.

The part that really amazed me was how much Beckett changed in just a few days. He went from a boy that wormed his way across a room to one that was pulling up on everything in sight. The only word for him right now is  BUSY. He went from saying a few little 'da da da's' to babbling non-stop in an almost conversation-like way. With actual pauses for comment. A friend let us borrow an activity table and Beckett sort of liked it from afar when we left. When we came back he crawled (not worming mind you, actual crawling) to the table, put his hands on it, got on his knees, and pulled up to a standing position. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He has also decided that he prefers not to eat anything he can't feed himself, which at this point is almost anything. And although his dexterity and 'pincer grasp' is, I think, pretty stellar, it would take him four hours to eat enough to make him full. So we've resorted to meals every couple of hours to keep him well-fed.

He actually just prefers to feed us and clamp his mouth shut when we try to feed him. I assume this is a phase so I'm trying not to panic. 

The highlight of the past weekend was Beckett's first real trip to the park. It was a whopping 40 degrees in Brookline on Sunday so we ventured out to find a bucket swing. Beckett was none to happy to be strapped into his stroller and yonked down the street in weather that was sunny but didn't exactly feel like 40 degrees. I warmed him up on the regular swing with me and when we plonked him into the bucket swing he smiled, albeit begrudgingly. 

 

It was an amazing day and a wonderful way to spend our first weekend back. Venice was incredible in ways I cannot even describe, but there is something almost more magical about seeing this when you wake up in the morning.