Mom put this in my book

It should be no surprise to me that Erik is obsessed with photo books. Most days of his life I have a camera out, am looking at pictures or talking about pictures. Its just a HUGE part of our everyday venacular. Let's be honest here, adults and kids alike love looking at pictures of themselves. Clicking through Facebook, looking at blogs or just reliving past vacation, its fun to look at pictures.

These last couple of weeks I have been knee-deep in creating Elliot's photobook. So everyday when we are playing nicely I sneak to my computer and start editing pictures and creating pages for his book. At the end of most days the boys like to sit on my lap and see my creation in process. Erik is a little jealous that right now is Elliot's turn, but he appreciates the memories and hey he is in a lot of the pictures.

In the last couple months I have watched Erik's physical abilities seriously improve. He has confidence and the ability to do things I had no idea he could do and as I watch him do it I get less and less scared by his risks. Honestly I want him to take some of these risk because I know how important it is to his development. Also I have been reading so much lately about how parents are so scared of letting their kids get hurt that we don't let them fall. When these children do fall, its big accidents and they get seriously hurt. So I let my kids fall and get bumped all the time. Of course I warn them, but I want them to learn how to take calculated risk.

This is why when Erik started climbing on top of his swing set this week I didn't stop him. He tried many times to hold the bars and climb across and it just didn't work for him. He doesn't have the strength or coordination yet. So when he figured out he could climb across I was impressed with his problem-solving skills. I will say I held my breath the first time he did this and stood really close to try and catch him if he fell, but I didn't stop him and I let him try. Guess what, he was really good at it.

So today I am sitting on my computer talking to his dad about when he can come home and grill us some steaks when Erik says, "Mom can you take pictures of me climbing across the bars and put it in my 5 year old book." My heart just melted and I immediately posted it as a status.

See this comment says two things to me, my boy loves pictures and his picture books as much as his mommy, but that he knows he accomplished something big and wants to see his work. And you know what, for a not yet 4.5 year old, climbing across those bars is a really big deal to his mommy. Letting him grow up is really hard for me to accept, but I cry and laugh when I see these moments and just let go, hold my breath and wish for the best.