To the firsts

Vivaan is now 5 years old. He is officially not a toddler and is now a kid. So the rapid growth has slowed a little. He is still learning new things at school or at home. But now nothing is as drastic as walking for the first time or talking for the first time or going to school for the first time. We celebrated his 5th birthday in November. I didn’t realize it at the time that my little one is not a toddler anymore. It just hit me last week and I was thinking of all the firsts we have had in last 5 years. I started thinking and it made me realize that now a days I want to hug him more than he wants to hug me. When I hug him for too long he wants me to let go because his mind is on the next masti that he can do.

Ever since he started going to daycare 1.5 years back, we had a ritual. He would hug both of us and say “Love you, Bye, have fun and have a good day”. I realized that we are not doing that nowadays. Earlier he would be the one to remember, but now we have to remind him. I know that it means he is excited to go to school and is not afraid to be away. I love this more independent phase of him but to be honest it makes me kind of sad. That brings me back to why I started to write this post. 

We removed stabilizers from Vivaan’s cycle last weekend. But he was not very confident and didn’t try riding his cycle after the first try. We were now thinking of putting them back and giving it another try after a few months. Today on a whim, while going to the shop in our apartment complex, we decided to try the cycle again. On our way to the shop and back he was riding okay but I was holding from the back the entire time. Since that road has many turns, we decided to try on the straight road behind our building. In the first try itself he was able to ride without support. The joy on his face was something I have not seen or experienced in a long time. He became so happy and confident and wanted to ride his cycle multiple times. It reminded me of the 5 month old Vivaan who wouldn’t stop flipping on his tummy on the day he learned to do that. 

I am so glad that I got to experience this first with Vivaan this week. It just assured me that, of course, the firsts are not over and many more are yet to come. 

Here is one of his first rides captured by Satya.