Growing

I'm sitting in the dark, camped out on our extra futon, typing with one hand. My other arm is holding the little guy, conked out with his head rolled over the crook of my left arm. It has been a rough day for him. The developments occurring in his brain seem to seize him especially radically on certain days. Today, for example, his eyes have been popping open unusually wide at even the most mundane objects. We're not sure how these objects and surfaces appear to him, but we see their impact on him. He can't seem to tear his eyes away, and he stares and stares, even as his eyes droop from fatigue and he cries in desperate need of sleep. His current nap is the result of a 40 minute workout of shooshing, rocking, patting, and repeatedly putting him down only to pick him back up when he cries out with an urgent plea for peaceful sleep.

When he has a difficult time falling asleep, I jump on those opportunities to break our self-imposed rule and let him sleep on me. His warm body fills me like nothing else. When he breathes on me, I want to suck it in, knowing that we really are one still.

Our little baby has been growing incredibly quickly. He is now over 14 pounds, almost double his lowest weight of 7 pounds and 2 ounces about five days after his birth. When we put him down on Tiny Love Gymini playmat, he latches onto the limbs of the orange giraffe and sky-blue monkey with such determination, and we boast as if he has scaled the highest of towers. He smiles and coos at us, and we know he has the best disposition. When our friends Paul and Hugo visited over the weekend, he took it upon himself to babble and engage our guests, and we knew that we have one gracious host. He's already a little person.

What an incredible year this has been. He will be three months old this Saturday, and I still can't believe he's here with us.