It took two weeks, but I’ve just about adjusted to spending the day away from Maddox. The mornings where he’s awake and alert always make it tougher to say goodbye, that’s for sure, but often once I get to work things get so busy that it’s suddenly 4:30 and I get to drive home and see him.

We’ve taken to calling Maddox our “monkey”, because of the uncanny resemblance he has to them when it comes to climbing. Put him against your chest and chances are he’ll start doing everything he can to climb up you.

So I paid special attention this morning when I was listening to a random mix of all my iPod songs in the car, and a song called Proudest Monkey came on, by the Dave Matthews Band. I hadn’t hear this song before (no big surprise there though – I haven’t actually heard probably about 30% of my music), but it had a catchy tune and I’ve been especially attuned to anything monkey related, having a monkey of my own now.

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The first verse gave me a big smile:

Swing in this tree
Oh I am bounce around so well
Branch to branch,
limb to limb you see
All in a day’s dream
I’m stuck
Like the other monkeys here
I am a humble monkey

But the next gave me my first sneak preview of what it will be like to watch my son grow up, leave home, and begin his own life

But then came the day
I climbed out of these safe limbs
Ventured away
Walking tall, head high up and singing
I went to the city
Car horns, corners and the gritty
Now I am the proudest monkey you’ve ever seen

I’m getting worried about this … and he’s only four weeks old! It made me want to appreciate every moment we have with him now, when we can pick him up and hold him and hug him and he can’t do anything about it!

On an unrelated note, since it was so nice today we drove out to Bradley Palmer State Forest (the one nice thing about being so far removed from commercial districts is that we sure do have a lot of parks around here) and took a short hike. I just picked the closest trail and said “Let’s go explore!”, so of course we ended up at a gravel pit. But the trail itself was quite nice, and Mads sure does enjoy being strapped into his Baby Bjorn. We also had our first in-car changing … though I use the term “we” loosely, since Leanne did all the work.

Tags: outside, walks