I'm a soft shoe softy

So, the little man is growing up. Sigh. It's exciting, there are big changes every week it seems... but it's poignant. I love and celebrate every new step (literally and figuratively) but I deeply cherish all those smooshy, simple baby times. Milk-drunk newborn naps on my lap, next to me on the couch, anywhere. Tummy time. Propping him up with couch pillows so we could take his photo sitting up. Topple over... giggle.

Little things strike me, mostly unexpected. Photos of chubby cheeks, gummy smiles, first messy bites of food, hair changes (dark to none to light), toy obsessions, etc... I laugh at myself: I lay him down to sleep for naps or for the night, and we're both exhausted from the day. Some nights I veg out to the TV, some nights I wander through the blogosphere, or maybe I read some gardening books. But some nights I spend my "free/me" time back in baby land, trolling through his Flickr set. It depicts his life so far, from first breaths to what happened last week.

Tonight was one of those nights when I migrated over to the Jacky photos.... oooh'ing and awww'ing over little things, some old some new. These days, he's getting pretty proficient at walking... running almost. And he's wearing "big boy shoes" -- real shoes. Or, rather little shrunken versions of real shoes that are so cute you want to eat them.

So, perusing photos tonight, the thing that absolutely GOT me was a few pictures of him in his old soft, baby-ish, pre-walking shoes. So innocent, sooo simple. I miss them.