I've grown to really dislike weekday mornings. I know, most people don't exactly look forward to weekday mornings, and before Jason was born I still didn't like them. It's become a whole different thing lately, though.

Generally speaking, I wake up when Jason wakes up. Sometimes--most Saturday mornings, for example--Juliette gets up and I can go back to sleep. And there are also the rare days when Jason wakes up in a good mood, so the first sound I hear is him playing in his crib. Most of my mornings, though, start with the sound of Jason whining or crying.

This morning, I rolled out of bed within a few seconds of hearing him stir, but I had to take a moment outside his door to prepare myself for what I knew was coming. By then, he was already calling for Juliette. "Mommy!" he whined repeatedly. "Mommy mommy!"

I pushed the door open, ready with a smile and a gentle voice. "Good morning, buddy!"

"No Daddy!" he shouted. "Go away!"

"I know, buddy, but Mommy's in the bathroom getting ready for work right now, so it has to just be you and me. Is that OK?"

"No! Want Mommy!"

"Do you want to go in the living room?"

"No, want Mommy in the living room!"

"Do you want some breakfast?"

"No!"

"Milk?"

"No Daddy, no!"

"Come on, let's go in the living room," I said, finally, lifting him, his sippy cup, and his stuffed orca out of the crib. He screamed all the way down the hall, screamed when I put him down, screamed when he ran back toward the bedroom, screamed when he found the gate at the mouth of the hallway closed. Then he just stood there and screamed.

I set about making his breakfast. Fruit and some apple bread that he and Juliette had made together a couple of days ago. He kept screaming after I set it on the dining table in front of his chair.

Eventually, Juliette came out, and he calmed down pretty quickly, sitting in her lap while he ate. After that he was fine until it was time to take him to day care, when he broke down again. By then, Juliette had been gone for almost half an hour, so I had nothing left but to carry him out to the car, strap him into his car seat, and start driving. He quieted almost as soon as I turned the key in the ignition.

Somewhere between home and day care, Jason's attitude toward me shifts. I don't know why, but at home he tells me to go away, sometimes even pushing me if I don't comply. As soon as we get to day care, though, he becomes clingy, needing me to carry him. He becomes desperate when I start showing signs that I have to leave, and when I finally pry him off me and pass him to one of his teachers, he cries.

It's about the only time he consistently wants me.

The thing is, though, he loves day care. He loves the other kids, loves his teachers, and really loves the school director. He loves singing with them, doing art projects, reading books, and playing outside. He loves pretty much everything about it. It's just that he has trouble transitioning from one thing to the next--if we left it up to him, there'd never be a next thing.

So, my weekday mornings start with Jason crying, progress through him rejecting me, follow to me making him cry broken-heartedly, and end with me at work. It shouldn't be surprising that it's not my favorite part of the week.

I know this is a phase and that it will someday pass. That doesn't make it easy, but it might just be the only thing getting me through these mornings.

We went to another birthday party for one of Jason's friends this weekend. Parks make good venues for kids' parties, in part because they're less crowded than a house when you have a lot of guests, but also because there's a built-in activity for the kids. As you can see, Jason enjoyed himself.

Technical information: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens in aperture-priority exposure mode. Aperture f/8, shutter 1/640 sec, ISO 200. White balance correction and curves applied in Aperture 3.

Thoughts for improvement: This shot was taken right near mid-day, so the light was very harsh. If this had been a professional portrait shoot, I'd have preferred it to be earlier in the day or to have had an assistant holding up a screen to help diffuse the light. Some fill light, either on-axis or from camera left, would probably also have helped. This particular frame worked out well enough with the exposure, but since I was in aperture priority mode, a lot of the others from the party were blurry due to slow shutter speed--in the future I'm going to have to either set my auto ISO configuration better or learn how to expose manually.

Jason's fascination with sunglasses continues. He borrowed these ones from a friend while we were out at a concert in the park. It was a little difficult to convince him to give them back when it was time to go home.

"Well, I should let you get to work."

"First I have to decide what to write about."

"You really don't know?"

"I have no idea."

"You should write about me and how awesome I am."

"OK. Um, do you think that would have broad appeal?"

"Of course! What kind of a question is that?"

"A stupid one, I guess."

"I can't decide which one of these I should choose for tomorrow's daily photo. The one of Jason is really cute and I like the way it shows his personality. But I also think the Potato Head one is good--it's kind of bizarre and cute at the same time, and it shows his personality, too."

"Can't you put more than one?"

"No. It's a daily photo not daily photos. That's the format."

"It's nice to see a series sometimes, though. That way you get to see different moments and they all add up."

"Yeah..."

"It's your web site. Do whatever you want."

"I guess I could add the self-portrait and make a triptych out of it."

"A what?

"A triptych. That's when you put three pictures together in panels."

"Oh, yeah, that might be good."

"OK, let's see what I can do with this."

Dear Jason,

When I wrote to you a year ago, I said that you didn't know what birthdays were yet. I think you have an inkling now, since you've been to six birthday parties in the last month alone, including your own. You tell people "Happy birthday!" when you get to the party, and you know to expect cake. At your birthday party you ate two cupcakes, and you had a third after dinner.

It's been a full year for you, and for me. You had your first trip to the hospital in September, for your ear tubes, and I learned that I could worry more than I thought possible. In October you had your first trip to the dentist, but only because you almost knocked one of your teeth out when you fell on your face. And in May you had your first stomach flu, which I think may have been almost as upsetting for me and your mom as it was for you.

It hasn't been all bad stuff, of course. You had your first Christmas in Big Sur with your Nana and Abba. You had your first trip to Virginia to see your Grandma and Grandpa. You went to your first baseball game, which you liked. You went to soccer class for the first time, which you didn't (and don't) like. You've really started to love the pool, and you're almost swimming on your own now. You're so brave that it takes my breath away.

You've always been independent and full of energy. You've only become more so this year. Sometimes that means you're squealing with joy as you play with me or your mom, or your friends. Sometimes it means you're screaming at the top of your lungs and kicking your heels against the floor in a full-on temper tantrum. It's given your mom and me the opportunity to really learn how to be patient. You've made us better parents. You make us better people.

As I write this, you're off at SeaWorld with your mom and your Nana. I wish I could be there with you--I know you're going to have a great day. I can't wait to see you when I get home.

I love you.

"Your grandma gave us those bowls?"

"Yeah. I remember because she didn't usually like to buy new things to give as gifts."

"Huh. Yeah, they don't seem like her style. It's a good thing I have you around, otherwise I'd never remember anything. The only thing I can remember your grandma giving us is that blue pitcher/vase thing from Pinecroft."

"What are you talking about? You mean the one that says 'Sandam' on it?"

"No that one is gray. You know, the blue pitcher. It has a handle, and it's from Pinecroft."

"We don't have a blue pitcher from Pinecroft."

"Yes, we do. I know we do."

"I think you're remembering a bunch of other things and putting it all together in your head."

"No, I have a really specific memory of this pitcher."

"We have a blue pitcher that we got for our wedding, but it's not from Pinecroft. And we have the 'Sandam' vase that my grandma got us, and that's from Pinecroft, but it's not blue."

"Let me look for it. Is it down here? No..."

"Is this the one you're talking about?"

"No, I know that's the one we got for our wedding. No, it's like the 'Sandam' one, but blue. And with a handle. Where is it?"

"You're remembering wrong again."

"No, it's here somewhere. Aha! This one!"

"Oh, yeah."

"See? It's blue and it has a handle."

"Yeah."

"And it's from Pinecroft."

"Yeah."

"And your grandma gave it to us."

"Yeah."

"'Oh, Mike never remembers anything. You're just remembering a bunch of other things and making it up in your head.' Ha ha! I feel like I could do a little dance."

"OK, fine, sometimes you're right."

I didn't actually do a dance, mind you. This is way more obnoxious.

I love you, honey!

We ate dinner out on the patio on Saturday evening, the weather being nice and Juliette's family--in town for his birthday party--being partial to al fresco dining. The menu was pretty simple: grilled steaks, steamed broccoli, corn on the cob, and salad. We cleared the plates as usual afterwards, then brought out some leftover cupcakes from the party.

Jason was, as you might imagine, pleased to have more sweets, though he took and then rejected three different cupcakes before settling on the one he actually wanted. "Want red!" he'd say. Then, when presented with a red-frosted cupcake: "No. Blue one." Then, "That one," pointing at the yellow cupcake.

Finally settling on, I think, a blue one, Jason only took a couple of bites before something else caught his attention. "Dip! Dip! That one!" he shouted, pointing insistently. It happened that we had left the little bowl of what Juliette's dad calls "Sakasegawa Sauce"--a mixture of mayonnaise and soy sauce that we sometimes use for dipping with steamed vegetables. Her dad likes it a lot, so he mixed up a little batch for the meal, and had a lot of fun introducing it to Jason, calling it "dippedy doodle" and laughing.

"Jason," we tried to explain, "that doesn't go on cupcakes."

He was, of course, having none of that. "Dip! Dip!"

"No, that's yucky! Not on the cupcakes. Yuck!"

"Diiiiip! That one!"

We went back and forth for a while, but eventually we just gave up and dipped the cupcake into the mayo mixture for him. After all, it's not like it would actually hurt him, and finding out for himself that the two tastes were gross when put together would be much more convincing than anything we could say.

Jason took a bite of the mayo-and-soy-covered corner of the cupcake. We waited for the reaction. He chewed, swallowed, then turned to us and held out the cupcake. "More?" he asked.

Well, who were we to argue with that? He happily ate the rest of his vanilla cupcake with each bite dipped in mayo and soy sauce. He didn't know it was supposed to taste bad, so it didn't.

The rest of us kept our own council, though, and just stuck with the normal frosting.

This summer, Monday is Water Day at Jason's day care. As you can see, he is all set.

Jason got a new toy from his Grandma for his birthday: a kitchen set. He loves it, and has been super excited to play with it ever since it magically appeared by the dining table one morning. This is him on that morning, putting two cups, a salt shaker, and two bowls into the oven. He's not doing that anymore, but for whatever reason, he thinks the phone goes in the microwave, and his wind-up dolphin toy ("MY NEW DOLPHIN!") goes in the fridge. He refuses to entertain any notions to the contrary.