Bye, Bye, Baby...

Shortly after River was born I signed up at babycenter.com after talking to other moms about some of the benefits. One of my favorite features is that weekly you receive emails with articles and activity suggestions appropriate for your baby's age. Each week the email is titled with your baby's age. Up until the week before River's first birthday this was the title for each weekly email, "My Baby This Week - Your 'A'-month-old: Week 'B'." However, on River's Birthday, the days of "My Baby" ended... Now they arrive with a new title, "My Toddler This Week - Your 1-year-old." For some reason this hit me much harder than I expected. Yes, I know my son is a year old now but I wasn't ready to start calling him a toddler! He still isn't toddling around yet and if things continue the way they are now he probably won't be for another month or two. babycenter recognizes the stress this may cause and states:

"Many view the first birthday as the toddler turning point. Others consider your baby a toddler as soon as he starts walking — or, as the case may be, taking his first tentative steps. However and whenever he crosses the line into toddlerhood, it's a bittersweet transition — you miss your little baby even as you delight in your amazing child."

Perhaps to prove he is growing out of the baby phase and asserting his independence River has taken on a pretty interesting new... um... "habit." River has always had amazing bladder control and as a result he has spent quite a significant amount of time nude after his morning diaper is removed or after his bath at night. Perhaps as a result of watching Cory often enough when he goes to the bathroom, River has taken to peeing whenever he is standing up! And yes it is only when he is standing up and has something to pee against that he lets fly. The first time he peed while standing up on a chair. I assumed that it was an accident, cleaned it up and didn't think anything about it until a couple days later after his nightly bath. He pulled himself up into the standing position on the outside of the tub, looked very purposely at me with a mischievous grin and promptly began to pee on the tile! A few days ago after a diaper change he wriggled out of my grasp and headed strait for the screen door. He pulled himself up to a standing position, stared out into the neighborhood beyond and relieved himself. He looked down several times perhaps checking out his wiz trajectory? Ah, good times, good times.