Daddy Ashore

Daddy takes Max for a little motorcycle ride in the village park.

After four long months, my husband has returned from sea.

One hundred and twenty-eight days have gone by since he last saw his infant son. His jaw-dropping, eye-widening smile when he came down the escalator at the airport and saw us standing there was worth every minute.

Max got a lot bigger since he was 2 months old. He wasn't ever a scrawny thing, but he has plumped up into a chubby chunk of absolute cuteness and several arm rolls. And he can sit up on his own and stand on your lap and babble away, which are amazing to a man who remembers him only crying, eating and pooping.

Baby and daddy adjusted to each other quite well. I'd like to think Max actually remembers him, but it's hard to tell and really doesn't matter.

It probably helps that every night I played for Max a voice mail Dan left for him and that I showed him one of our wedding pictures in which Dan is kissing me, saying, "That's Daddy! See Daddy? That's your daddy!"

Max is a happy, interactive baby, and he had Daddy enamored pretty quickly. He must have said, "Look at that smile!" a dozen times the first night home.

The next day, we put the baby in the stroller and did our village rounds, including the post office, hardware, bakery, and dollar mart. This time we added the park, and we both delighted in Max's little feet clapping away as Daddy pushed him in the baby swing.

We still have some things to work out. A minor one is that Dan isn't used to how baby things multiply like baby rabbits and spread all over the house. If he has a better solution, he can knock himself out. But most parents accept a certain level of it and deal with it.

A major one is that Max was still co-sleeping with me in our bed. I had made significant progress in Max sleeping in his crib for his naps, but we never got around to a different nighttime routine. He is still nursing a few times a night, and he rests best when he's cuddled up next to me.

But since Dan has been working aboard a ship for 128 straight days, standing a midwatch that gives him only a few hours of sleep here and there, his first night home was going to be spent in his own bed.

Max slept contentedly the first few hours in his own crib -- some pretty vital hours for a husband and wife to be alone in their bed after being parted for four months -- but protested mightily when I tried to put him back in there after a nursing session.

I gave it a good hour, and then gave up and took him into the guest bed and spent the rest of the night with him in there. I didn't sleep well at all.

But there's always a transition period, no matter the time away. This time is special because it's the first one coming back to a son who is older and bigger and different, but there will be more of those times to come.

For now, we'll all just sleep when and where we can. I'm the only one awake, keyed up after seeing the new James Bond movie for our date night. Max is still asleep in his downstairs playpen where my mother laid him, and Dan is curled up in the big chair asleep with his dog.

My plan is to wait until Max rusltes, take him upstairs, nurse him back to sleep, and conk out with him in his bed. Shh ... don't wake Dan.