Puppy Love

Mozely is our mascot. We think of him as a little doggy.

He comes when we call, on all fours, laughing and moving like he’s shaking his tail. He always looks when we say his name.

Sometimes he teases us and tries to crawl away, as quick as we can, when we play with him.

He gets very excited when we come home or when we peek a boo around a corner.

And he drools, oh, he drools. Always since he was 4 weeks old. He only has two teeth.

His favorite thing is to play in the hose. If he hears the bath on in the house he will immediately crawl to it and beg to be put in.

He’s created his own sign language for what he wants.

Water: Gets really kicking and excited when he looks at a cup of water

Milk: Comes up to you and tries to french kiss your face and shoulder

All done: a modified Indian war cry with his fist

I really want that: immediately makes impatient voices and comes up to you, bouncing up and down excitedly, smiling and drooling wildly. If you don’t give it to him he will melt down quickly. Somehow he ALWAYS recognizes cake, doughnuts, ice cream, yogurt, or oatmeal. I mean, he never does that when I’m eating anything else. He could care less about sweet potato soup, for example, even though it could pass for some of those, just by looks.

He has started standing up on his own from sitting, and he took one big leg up, but it didn’t get any further ahead, so I’m not sure if that was his first step or not. I’m not counting it.

He seems more child-like than Amaya was at this age. He’s still such a textbook baby. He’s not that interested in being grown up.

He’s sweet and recognizes people, like Adam and Mariah. Jake is definitely his favorite person. He either gets really excited when Amaya comes running up to him, or starts getting stressed out and tries to get away. She really loves him and wants to be in charge of him. She picks him up constantly and always wants to get in his face and pay attention to him. She’s very proud of him and likes to show him off.

He hates vegetables. He won’t let you put them in his mouth. I still try every day, but he blows them out before I put them in his mouth. He just knows what they look like even if I mash them up or hide them under other things. I think he might have an extraordinary sense of smell. It’s hard to find him things to eat, so he mostly eats bread, fruit, baby puff stars, cheese, and eggs. It drives me crazy.

He likes to wake up between 4-6 am. Usually way before 6am. It’s not fun and we’re grumpy during the day. I think it’s our own fault for sleep training him to not wake up at night, and now he can’t sleep anywhere but his bed. It’s like 1/2 dozen in one hand, 6 in the other. We spent several days trying to just ignore him and letting him cry (read scream wildly, bounce up and down and try with all his might to crawl out of the crib, and wake up all the neighbors) himself back to sleep, but he doesn’t, and after brushing up on my reading material it seems like sleep therapists think that it’s normal for him to wake up this early and be ready for the day. I should have known because Amaya didn’t sleep much either. He can sleep about 8 1/2 hours at once and no more (which is a big improvement from waking up every 1 1/2 to eat, of course—that training took three weeks, so I’m not complaining). He does take good naps. I tried to take away one of his naps so he’ll sleep longer at night but that was a disaster and doesn’t help the night sleeping at all.

Really, if I just went to bed at 9pm I wouldn’t even care so much. I wish I could just be fine with not getting anything done after the kids go to bed.

I think that there is no love that can compare to loving your child. And you only realize it once its happened: hugging your child feels so good it hurts, seeing them playing with friends is so sweet, or even worrying about the day that they will be apart from you and living their own life even though there is so much left to see and do. It’s a maddening, crushing, at times life-sucking love, but the most fulfilling one there is. Love that you have with your spouse is fulfilling and so important for companionship, especially for refueling and making sure you can still have love and patience to spare, but loving your child is so much bigger than you and so beyond anything that you could want for yourself.

At least in my opinion. Aren’t I such a cliché parent?

Today is our 10 year anniversary. It’s pretty amazing what can happen in 10 years. You even can think that it’s okay just to publish a bunch of pictures of your baby and call that “what’s happening in my life right now” because you expect the world to care as much as you.