As I eluded in my last couple of posts, he is really starting to exercise his free will. Luckily for us, he still has “the attention span of a fly” as Mama has so eloquently articulated. He is really starting to protest when you want him to do something he doesn’t want to do. And again, sometimes he is just protesting to protest. And then, all of a sudden, we find ourselves in a restaurant (or some other public place) being those people with a screaming child. Luckily, “look over there!”, still works really well. I pulled that trick in a very small but crowded restaurant the other day. A father sitting at a table with three teenagers looked at me and gave me a big “thumbs up”, as he was laughing and trying not to spit out his beer. Sitting with three teenagers, he had obviously been there before, but the vote of confidence was kind of amusing and a bit reassuring on some level. Jago seems to be doing that kind of thing more and more, and you really have to remember to just stay cool and not let him influence our behavior. Wonder how much longer “looketh over there” will work. Soon I will need to be more cleaver with my redirections!
No Papa!
Well, it seems like we’ve reached that stage where everything is No Papa! We are currently traveling, so I am getting to spend more time with him than normal, which is fun for me, Mama, the family and hopefully fun for him too. And, as Papa, I am naturally the fun parent so I am always kind of gently poking at him or trying to get his attention or trying to get him to do something. In return, I am currently getting a lot of “No Papa”. I say it back to him because I think it’s funny. Grandpa thinks it’s funny too, he laughs whenever he hears him say it. Sometimes, I think he is just saying no for the sake of saying no, not because he is necessarily rejecting whatever I am doing. And sometimes he laughs, so it seems like he is just trying to be funny. Further evidence of his free will and personality developing.
Everything is Spring, But not Everything is a Drum!
Just something I said to make myself laugh one day while we were at someone else’s house, and he was beating on everything.
I Can’t Believe How Much You’ve Changed
Sometimes it feels like one long day since he was born. And time always runs fast and runs together, but I simply cannot believe how much faster it has been running since Jago joined the fold. And when you see someone every day, it can be easy not to realize exactly how much they are changing, but when I look back over 20 months, it’s really unbelievable. When he was born, he was so small I could hold him in my hand, he mostly just slept, and he could barely move (which is completely normal for a newborn baby). Now, he can walk, is starting to talk, he can feed himself with a spoon, and when he spills something he can clean it up and then throw the rag away (or try to eat the rag). The change is just amazing, and it has been so interesting to watch. In some ways it’s like watching slow motion. The incremental changes are so small, but when you look back and see how much he has changed its really incredible. He is starting to develop his own will and personality too, which is very interesting. He really is a sweet baby though, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my kid. He offers us food, gives other kids toys. But he can be not so sweet too. Sometimes in a funny way, like he will offer you a cracker, and then pull it back and eat it, and smile like a son of a gun. Kinda like a sour patch kid I guess (first they’re sour, then they’re sweet). And, then other times he’s a whiny little baby, exactly like every other little baby. One thing that has stayed consistent, he has always liked being around people. We call him our party baby. Hopefully that will never change!