This was a milestone weekend for Christopher and me. It was the first weekend I was able to bring him home for more than just a few hours. Needless to say, being a first time dad I was worried about a million different things. I'd never given him a bath before. I didn't know how much he would wake up in the middle of the night. I didn't know what kind of mood he'd be in over the course of the day. How much would he eat? How much would I have to change his diapers?

All kinds of things were worrying me about the weekend. In the end, it was so much fun.

I think this weekend we really bonded more than we ever had before. The first night Christopher fell asleep at 8 p.m. and proceeded to wake up every hour until 7 a.m. His mother had texted me after she got off of work asking how he was doing and I said he'd already passed out and woken up once. She told me she usually walks him around for awhile or just pats and rubs his back.

Sure enough the next time he woke up I gave him a few sips of his bottle and he promptly turned to his side so I could pat his back. Within a minute of him waking up, he fell back asleep. Process was repeated every hour until he finally just woke up at 7. On the plus side of things, I'm a light sleeper so I was able to hear his cry and bolt up from the futon I decided to sleep on.  I wondered about when he woke up in the morning if he'd still have the same smile he did when he spent days without seeing me. He did. :)

My dad and stepmom decided to come down for a day to finally meet his 6-month-old grandson. It was a bittersweet visit. My feelings for my dad haven't exactly been joyous ones for awhile now and the fact he still hadn't met his only grandson in the six months since he was born really didn't spell a recipe for me being nice. But once he finally did arrive to my apartment it was like all of my disappointment disappeared and we were able to just live in the moment - as short as it was.

Usually Christopher cries with new people he meets - at least he has with me. He took one look at my best friend Kris and started contorting his face into a cry. My brother picked him up and he went crazy and bawled. When he met his grandpa he smiled and let my dad and my stepmom hold him. It was really awesome to watch him interact with his grandparents and not cry.

Eventually everything comes to an end and our weekend together soon did. I didn't really have anything planned because I wanted to get a feel for what it would be like taking care of him for the whole weekend. Even then, I wanted to hold on to him for longer. He fell asleep right before I took him to his grandma's house and when he woke up to see his grandma and aunt and cousins he started smiling and laughing. But what made our separation a little better was even after spending a whole weekend with just me, he woke up with family he hadn't seen in a few days and yet he still smiled and wanted me to hold him. When I left I sat in my car and cried because leaving him is the hardest thing I've ever experienced and I have to do it every other weekend.

Now my apartment feels empty. There are no cries. No laughter. No playing. No light breathing. I look around at reminders of him and I smell him throughout my entire apartment and it's so hard to know he's not with me for another two weeks. Two weeks of hell. One weekend of heaven. I could be upset, but at least I get to see him and be there for him. All I've ever wanted was to be a good dad and I hope he knows that.