The Pros and Cons of Gaining Experience

I'm in the airport in Albany waiting for a delayed flight to Baltimore head to Stacy & Paul's wedding tomorrow. (My connection from Baltimore to Columbus is also delayed, so right now it looks like I'll be okay. You'll have to check back to see if I actually appear in photos from the wedding.)  That means a bonus post!

I know you've all missed me, but it's seemed silly to post while I wasn't actually with Nicholas.  But I have had some phone conversations with him this week, so I can report that he's getting much better at having conversations, with a few conditions.  He now actually responds to questions and will say things other than "hello," "how you doing?" and "good bye!" (followed by hanging up). He told me about the ice cream he ate, and riding on a tractor, and playing in the pool.

The kicker is that he still needs a lot of prompting (no open-ended questions!) so it helps tremendously to have a pre-briefing from Sarah about their activities.  Ask him, "what did you do today?" and you'll get a response of "hello!" or just silence.  But ask "Did you ride a tractor?" gets back "rode the tractor" and then happy babbling about going on the tractor.

It's great that he's getting better on the phone. He needs to, not least for his grandparents, aunts, and uncles, all of whom pine to talk to him on the phone or on Skype but feel disappointed when he actually gets on and doesn't say anything. But it's a little bittersweet to know that he's gaining this experience because of the geographic separation this week. I'm a little less excited about the fall to know that the phone (and Skype) are going to have to sustain a father-son relationship, especially when he's still a little guy (our posts about how grown-up he is notwithstanding).

We'll manage of course and it makes things much easier to know that I can have a phone chat with him.  I just wish it didn't have to come at the expense of being in the same place as him.