Day 122: Moments of Recognition

I am "one". You are "one". Atom is "one". All so confusing...and at first Atom could care less. Every one appeared to just be a "one" to him. All the same (aside from his Mom and their obviously special bond). He would pretty much act the same to every "one". A nurse at the doctor's office, our dwarf bunny Peanut or myself all seemed to share in Atom's limited tool box of expressions. He didn't reserve a cuddly half smirk out of the left side of his mouth for me anymore than he did for the random stranger peering at him in his car seat. We all got to witness equally his sublime but limited range of expressions.

Last night that finally changed for me. I was gone for a very long time and returned late at night to find Atom happily still awake. I peered into his crib and went through our normal greetings and salutations. "How's it going Atom?" "How was your day?" Did you poop yet?" And suddenly his eyes shifted from a general glaze to an electric blue and I was greeted with a huge gummy smile. He quickly inserted his hand into his mouth and squealed an "affirmative" to my last question and like that...we had a moment. We made a connection. I was no longer just something that helped keep his belly full and his bottom dry. I was some"one". "Someone" he recoginized. Someone that generated meaning to his greeting. Wow! I felt a bolt of pride and, much like the Grinch, my heart grew a few sizes that day. It was an incredible feeling. Never has a greeting resonnated so loudly within my soul. He could have still been in the after glow of his latest bodily function but I will always remember it as the day I became a "someone".