Time Flies When....

If time flies when you're having fun then Jim, Clay and I must be having a ball!  How is it that it's been three weeks since my last post AND my newborn is suddenly over 4 months old.  In some ways (like in the predictable mom way "he's growing up too fast"), it doesn't seem possible.  In other ways (like when I think about how much little man has changed) it makes perfect sense that we're 4 months into Clay's life!

That being said, I'll give you a few highlights of the past few months. Let's start in June with a baby just shy of his 3 month birthday. On June 18 we celebrated both Jim's first Father's Day and Clay's baptism. We were extremely blessed to be able to share the day with Clay's grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncle, great aunts, great uncle, cousins, playmates, and friends.  It was a truly wonderful day and I was moved to tears when we heard our small congregation say in one powerful voice that they would help to raise Clay so that he would come to know God. What a GREAT DAY!

Contemplating his baptism after church...

Asleep in Aunt Dree's arms after his big day

Nana and Gramps (Clay's great-grandparents; Clay's middle name - Garner - is their last name).  Gramps led us in a beautiful blessing; Jim and I feel so fortunate to call them our grandparents.

Cuddling with Aunt Rachel (since it was a good 7 hours after his baptism everyone else had changed, I just LOVED how cute he was in his seersucker that I kept him in his outfit for as long as possible)!

Now let's fast forward a week to a baby who has just spent the first 13 weeks of his life at home (8 weeks with Mommy, 1 week with Daddy, 1 week with Yaya, 1 week with Granny and Daddy, 1 week with Yaya and Daddy, and 1 week with Granny) and suddenly we have a baby who is one day shy of his three month birthday and is starting at school.  I thought I'd be totally fine dropping him off at daycare.  After all, I'd been back at work for 5 weeks and had to go all day without seeing him - now that Clay was at JCPenney's on site daycare I could go see him everyday at lunch so no big deal - this should be a piece of cake, right?  Well, we got to school safely, without much crying (he didn't start crying until the very last turn in before we got on the tollway so I pulled into the parking lot, jumped into the back seat and calmed him down, the jumped back on the tollway and it was smooth sailing from there).  Once at school, I got Clay checked in, situated his stuff, and gave him hugs.  I walked over to do something at his crib and thought, man I made it no tears.  I promptly looked up and with a huge smile on my face (and now GINORMOUS tears streaming down my face) told the teachers to have a great day and proceeded to cry on the three minute trek to my desk.  I knew Clay would be fine down stairs but it was just so hard to leave him.  Luckily, lunch wasn't too far away and I went down stairs to find him happily at play.  I was able to give him a bottle, rock him to sleep and put him down for a nap.  I haven't cried when leaving him since but boy howdy do I still miss him during the day! 

Clay's first day of "school"

Clay has done so well at "school".  He's changed so much over the last month, I think partially it's just his age and maturity but I think it's also due to being able to watch other babies play.  Clay is the youngest in his class so he gets to watch the "older kids" do all kinds of things and Clay loves people watching (just like his Mommy - we'll just hope that he learns to be more discrete than his Mommy!)  I'll pick up with July's happenings soon!