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Just yesterday, Amy pulled out a picture of Connor when he was 1 year old. And my thought, you ask……How completely rich has life been over the last 2.5 years with this little turkey running around our house. It’s funny because we were looking through a couple pictures while enjoying a night without kids. We can’t even go out for one night without missing him and feeling this little void while he is away. Don’t get me wrong, while he is gone with grammy and papa, Amy and I enjoy that sense of freedom we experienced before kids, but he is such a large part of our lives that it is difficult to go too long without thinking about him. This usually occurs about bed time….when we take a bath, read a story, say our prayers [which by the way he is learning to do himself now and makes me tear up about every time I hear it], trading bear hugs and watching him blow me kisses and hearing him say “La Yu Dada, night night”. But as I looked at that picture and then look at him now I can’t help but wonder what the next 1….2….5 years will look like.

Here recently he has been trading one bad habit for another. First it was a pacifier at bed time, then it was read me 5 stories, then it was I’ll get out of bed 15 times before finally going to sleep [wait, he has always done than], but now…..this bad habit he has is one that I like quite a lot. Some time through the night he wakes up, grabs every blanket and pillow on his bed [which collectively is bigger than he is], opens his bedroom door [somehow with all of that stuff], opens our bedroom door, runs to his mommy’s side of the bed, wakes her up to take all of his blankets and pillows, runs back into his room and turns off his air purifier and shuts his door, climbs into our bed and wakes me up by whispering “Da Da…..Da Da”. I’m then required to pull back my covers and he snuggles in as tight as he can right next to me….and I have to put my arm around him. Granted, by the time we wake up his foot is in my mouth and he is on the other end of the bed, but for that moment, life with a child doesn’t get any better. At some point we will have to break him of this habit, but for now…..we’ll leave it alone.

This is the last thing, I promise…..when we start to wake up in the morning, it usually starts by him kicking me in the face….or other sensitive area of my body…so I’ll grab him and pull him back up to curl up beside me. When he does, its not long before I begin to fall back asleep and I’ll hear him go “eww, daddy poopie”. Actually, he got a whiff of my morning breathe…..which in my mind is a form or punishment for kicking me all morning. That is one of those memories I’ll never forget and hopefully, neither will he.

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