Jason had kind of a rough weekend. I'm not sure exactly why since it was a fun weekend. It could have been that all the extra stimulation had him feeling overtired--Saturday he played with a bunch of his friends in the morning and then got to visit a new house when we went to have dinner with our friends that evening. Or perhaps he's getting a new tooth. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. It's hard to say, but whatever the reason he was extra fussy, and it really started wearing on me after the first day.

There are a lot of times I find myself getting frustrated, even angry, or just feeling completely exhausted. Like I often do when I'm not enjoying my current situation, those times get me into a "wait it out" frame of mind, where I keep telling myself that it'll be over eventually. It's a pretty natural reaction, I think, and in some ways it's useful--it helps me keep going when I need to get through a tough spot. It's when you do it too much that it can be problematic.

I realized last night after Jason went to bed that one day I will put him down after holding him, carrying him, cuddling him, and that will be the last time I ever do it. I probably won't know it when it happens. In fact, it's likely that it'll seem so ordinary that I won't even be able to remember exactly the last time I do it. I thought about that for a while and this deep sense of sadness came over me, and it kind of surprised me because I didn't used to think that I'd be sentimental in that way. I obviously want him to grow up and I'm really curious to know what sort of man he'll be, but I'm also going to miss being able to rock him to sleep, to run my fingers through his hair as he rests his head against my shoulder, to feel him cling to me with his arms and legs as I carry him. So what I'm trying to do now is slow things down for myself and really savor the experience of taking care of my baby, because it really won't last very long.

Even in just the month or so since I last wrote, he's changed so much. He's been crawling now for about two months, so that's not exactly new, but lately he's been getting tantalizingly close to walking. He pulls himself to a stand easily now and has been standing freely more often and for longer durations. He's been feeding himself finger foods for a while now, but lately he's actually been getting good at getting it into his mouth. His babbling has seemed to be getting more purposeful, and in the past week or two we've been able to get him to imitate the sounds we make. I even think he's starting to use one of the signs we've been teaching him--it's hard to tell, though, if he's really signing or just playing with his own hands. Every day he gets a little more active, a little more inquisitive, a little more fun--he's just growing up so fast. I wonder what I'll remember about this time when I'm looking back on it from way down the road. But then, that's part of why I'm writing this, isn't it?