Dada Time

I was worried about how the boys would react to their Dad. I was pretty sure Caleb would be fine, but he can be shy around new people. He hugged his Dada immediately and went straight to him when we picked Kevin up. By the next morning, he already preferred Kevin over me. A common phrase in the house right now is "No Mama, let Dada do it." In his book "Bringing up Boys," Dr. Dobson talks about the natural progression for a young boy to detach from his mother and begin identifying with his father. This, he says, should happen when the

boy is between 18 months and 3 years old. I was a little worried because Kevin deployed when Caleb was 20 months old and he has only had me. But seriously, it was like a band-aid being ripped off how fast Caleb ditched me for his dad. I'm glad, of course, but it kind of hurts too. My baby is a little boy now, and he'd rather kick the ball to his Dada than to me, even if Kevin is on the phone and can't play right now.

Joshua is still my baby though. I was seriously concerned that he would be terrified of Kevin and then not let Kevin hold him for a long time. J hasn't been in the nursery at church because the service we go to is small and they don't have a good nursery. And he's at that stranger fright/separation anxiety stage. (Caleb never went through this so it caught me off guard with Joshua.) I thought I'd ruined him by keeping him with me so much. But he's getting through that stage and even stayed in the nursery for 2 hours last night at Bible study. After a day, though, he was fine. Joshua lights up when Kevin comes into the room, smiles his huge, gummy smile, and starts to laugh-gasp.

We went to a volunteer appreciation thing for Kevin's unit Monday night. Caleb played with his friend Ellie while we talked with her parents, the Posts. After a few minutes I looked over at the kids and they were throwing dirt at each other and laughing hysterically. Caleb wiped dirt out of his eyes, tears coming down, and squealed with delight. He looked like Pig-Pen, with a smile.