So Bobby was gone tending to some family business in Colorado. I say this like its a matter-of-fact thing, but in reality it's huge! He's never been away from Ryan, hasn't flown without me in ages (if ever) and it was just a major major deal. But we arranged for my mommy to come and stay with Ryan during the couple 3 days and all seemed well. I was wondering if Ryan was missing his daddy, but he seemed well adjusted, no weird waking up, happy and gurgly when I came home from work. And Nana Tess was great with him, playing and singing songs over and over again nonstop.

So on Friday the three of us were out to dinner, just before picking up Bobby from the airport. Then a family sat down near us. Ryan looked them over in his adoring "hey look at me fun new friends" kinda way (the boy knows no strangers)and then was fixated on the man. He kept staring and staring and staring, enough that I was a little perplexed. After 15 minutes of unabashed looking, I flipped Ryan's high chair to face away from the family. And he turned completely around in his seat to continue staring at the man. Puzzled, I looked over again and realized that the man looked very similar to Ryan's Daddy. When I mentioned it to the family, they smiled and the man started cooing to Ryan who opened his arms to be carried by this surrogate Bobby. He's never even done that for either of us before. It was incredibly incredibly sweet and poignant to see how much Ryan missed his daddy.

The layers and layers of love and emotion that you feel for your child is amazing. The kid blows my mind every day and I just am so joyful at being able to share in his life. Sigh ......

Ton of other stories, most notably the great time we had eating as much junk as possible with Bim and Mel at the fair, eating at Slanted Door with the bachelorette party babes, and a collection of 4 months more Ryan's development, and our various trips, but this story was too good to not share!