One of the funny and wonderful—and sometimes maddening—things about small children is that they are completely incapable of hiding their feelings. Whatever they feel at any particular moment is completely apparent on their little faces. Now, as a parent, I'd love it if Jason's face always looked like this:

Even this would be fine:

Unfortunately, more and more often lately, Juliette and I have been seeing this:

And, worse for us, that face is frequently followed by a full-on, heels-kicking-on-the-floor tantrum.

He gets this face pretty much any time we tell him he can't have something or can't do something. "No, sweetie, that's not your toy, that's the dog's toy." Or, "Jason, you can't go outside and play with your water table right now, it's too cold." Or, "Mommy's in the bathroom right now, can you play with Daddy instead?"

Unfortunately for Juliette and me, Jason has fully inherited both of our stubborn streaks. Once he sets his mind on something, it can be very difficult to pull him onto a different track. He'll even throw his whole body weight into pushing one of us away if we try to thwart him. Sometimes he even hits us.

We're dealing with it the best way we can. Juliette and I have discussed and decided on our guidelines for what is and isn't acceptable behavior, and give him instruction on that every day. We require that he say "Please" and "Thank you." We praise and reward good behavior, and we've introduced "time-out" for when he breaks the rules, or doesn't listen, or gets too out of hand. We try to be consistent.

It's been kind of a mixed bag in terms of results, so far. On the one hand, he has gotten better about listening when we tell him to do something—the threat of a "time-out" is a pretty good motivator, especially because he knows we'll follow through on it. On the other hand, he still has breakdowns pretty frequently, and sometimes it feels like they're only becoming more common. The problem is that he's such an inquisitive and active kid. He always wants to be doing something or touching something, getting into new places and seeing new things. And when he wants something, that desire is both strong and untempered by the maturity required to delay gratification.

It's been a tough time, and both Juliette and I have been feeling our patience wearing thin. Sometimes we wonder what's wrong with him or with the way we've been raising him, since it seems like he acts out more than any of the other kids we know. We just have to tell ourselves that we're doing the best we can, that we don't know what any of those other kids are like when we're not around, and that this is just a phase that he'll grow out of.

It's not like he's completely awful, either. On the contrary, Jason is often sweet and smart and funny and fun to be around. I particularly love how generous he is with his things when his friend Amalea comes to visit—he's constantly showing her books and giving her toys, and generally trying to make sure she's having a good time. He also spontaneously gives hugs to me and Juliette, or to his friends.

It's things like that that keep me going when Jason falls apart and screams "No Daddy!" over and over. I just close my eyes, take a breath, and remember the feeling of his little hand patting me on the shoulder when he gives me a hug.

One night last week, I came home from work to find Jason already at the table, eating his dinner. That's not particularly unusual, especially when things get busy at the office, but what caught my eye was the teddy bear that was sitting on the table looking at him. He's had that bear for most of his life, having received it from Juliette's mom not too long after he was born. Up until fairly recently, though, he didn't show much interest in it; it just sat on a little Jason-sized chair in his room. So I wasn't expecting to see it anywhere else.

"Are you eating with your bear?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said with a smile and a big nod. He then proceeded to hold up a handful of food to the bear's mouth and make chewing noises.

"Oh," I said. "Is the bear eating?"

"Yeah!" he replied. "Yeah, yeah! Bear! Hungry." The bear continued chewing his food. (The bear still hasn't quite mastered the whole swallowing thing, though—most of the food ended up on the table between his legs.) I smiled and set my bag down. I was just turning to say something to Juliette when I heard Jason tell his bear "I love you!" (Or, rather, "I yuh you!") Juliette and I just about died from cute overload.

For the past few weeks, Jason's interest in the bear has been growing. Every night when I run his bath, Jason runs straight to the bear's chair when I tell him it's time to take his clothes off. He grabs the bear and hugs it ("Hug. Bear.") and pouts a little when I tell him he can't take the bear into the bath with him. He throws it sometimes, or tries to take off it's red-and-white maple leaf sweater.

Of course, being the age he is, Jason's attention does wander. He hasn't played with the bear much over the past week, instead constantly asking for his tunnel and his soccer ball. Still, I have a feeling that the bear is going to be a consistent favorite.

After dinner that night, Jason wanted to watch The Little Mermaid. Moreover, he wanted both me and the bear to watch with him. He was very particular about where each of us sat: Jason against the left armrest, I on the middle cushion, and the bear between us. The three of us had a pretty good, cozy time.

Mother's Day weekend was a little up and down for us.

Saturday morning we spent some time playing in the yard. Jason can't get enough of his water table, which is great since summer is rapidly approaching.

We went to Lake Miramar later, and decided on the spur of the moment to walk the entire 5-mile loop.

After dinner, because I am awesome, I volunteered to drive down to Mission Valley and pick up dessert from our favorite deli. The folks behind the counter were nice enough to let me take some pictures. (I should probably note that I didn't actually get one of these little pies. I don't know why. But the bread pudding and custard I did get were good.)

We had big plans for Sunday, involving Juliette sleeping in, then going out for breakfast and dinner. Unfortunately, Jason's stomach had other ideas—he woke up at about two in the morning and threw up nine times over the next eight hours. None of us got much sleep, though, as you can see, Jason did manage to catch a late morning nap on the couch. Just so you don't worry, he was feeling much better by dinner time and slept fine last night.

In an unrelated note, I'm trying to be a little more disciplined about which photos I keep, so this week's set is a much more manageable size:

Dear Juliette,

I just wanted to take a moment, here where everybody can see it, to tell you that I love you and I'm glad you're the one I get to partner with in raising our son. I couldn't do any of this without you. Happy Mother's Day.

Jason has something he wants to say, too:

A day late again, but here are my favorite pictures from this weekend:

The Mexican sage in our back yard started blooming recently. All in all the yard is looking pretty nice right now.

Juliette and Jason played with the water table on Saturday morning. I love the look on his face here.

Saturday afternoon we went and visited some friends and their daughter, Lilliana. This picture was pretty representative of their interaction—she kept wanting to hug and kiss him and he was like "Why are you doing that?"

Lilliana had these little boxes that I think are meant to teach colors since each one was full of toys that were the same color as the box. Jason was less interested in the boxes' educational value, though, than he was in wearing them as hats. (I don't know why, but he loves hats right now, and tries to turn just about everything into a hat.) Unfortunately, the boxes were a little snug on his head and he had trouble getting them off on his own.

I'm not totally thrilled with how enthralled Jason can be by the TV sometimes, but it does make it a lot easier to get a few things done in the morning.  In case you're wondering, that's Ricky Gervais singing Elmo a "celebrity lullaby" on Sesame Street.

On Sunday we went to the pool for the first time in almost a year. Jason had unfortunately forgotten most of what he learned in his infant swimming classes and was kind of apprehensive about the toddler pool at first, even though it's shallow enough for him to stand up along its entire length. But he loosened up eventually and had a good time.

I had trouble winnowing down the full set this week, but here are some highlights from the rest of the set:

Yesterday morning, Jason and I were sitting at the table, as usual, eating our breakfast. I was just finishing my English muffin, pondering the improbability of the silence of the last several minutes, when Jason came up with a request.

Jason: Daddy!

Me: Yeah, buddy?

Jason: Water!

Me: You want water?

Jason: (points) Doggy water!

Me: That's right, the dog has water. Do you want water, too?

Jason: Yeah.

Me: OK, I'll get you some water, but you have to say please, first.

Jason: Please. First.

I meant to post these pictures on Monday, but between Jason getting sick and a particularly busy week at my office, I just couldn't find the time. I know, "Excuses, excuses." In any case, here's what I have from last weekend's photos:

We went to a new park in Liberty Station on Saturday:

We got some lunch at a seafood place nearby:

Then after we ate, I took some pictures of the Point Loma marina:

The rest of the set:

Dinnertime has been an an interesting example of Jason's development lately. On the one hand, he's becoming more adept with his utensils and his aim is also improving, which means that a much higher percentage of his food actually makes it into his mouth. On the other hand, he's more or less decided that he's done with bibs and knows how to remove them on his own. The net effect is that by the end of dinner every night his chest and lap are covered with food. We usually deal with that by just stripping him down after the meal, which is fine anyway because there's usually less than fifteen minutes to go until his bathtime.

Tonight went more or less as usual in that regard, though Jason did jump the gun a bit and started trying to get his shirt off before he was finished eating. After he was done and I took him out of the chair and got his pants off, he started complaining about his diaper. Juliette glanced down and, sure enough, it was sagging heavily between his legs. Still, he hadn't pooped and his bath was just a few minutes off—it seemed like a waste to put a brand new diaper on him at that point.

Of course, while we were discussing our options, Jason decided to take matters into his own hands. He managed to slide the diaper halfway down his butt before we noticed, and although we initially wanted him to leave it on, we quickly relented and helped him get it all the way off, leaving him naked except for his right sock.

"No wonder he wanted it off," said Juliette, hefting the diaper in one hand. "This is the heaviest diaper you've ever had, buddy."

"Is this a good idea?" I asked. "What if he starts peeing?"

"Well, we'll just have to wipe it up," she replied.

You can all see where this is going.

Jason was overjoyed about his newfound freedom and immediately scampered off to the living room with a shout of glee. Juliette peeked over the couch to find him digging around in his toybox. "Mike, look how cute!" she cried. "You have to take a picture of this."

I hemmed a bit about the light being bad but grabbed the camera anyway. I was just entering the living room when Juliette let out a little shriek.  "He's peeing!" she laughed. I glanced down and, sure enough, there was a little puddle growing by his feet. What's more, he managed to pee through the wicker of his toybox, spraying all the toys inside.

Being dog owners on top of being parents, we've gotten pretty good at cleaning up messes on our carpet. There's always a bottle of Nature's Miracle under our sink these days, and a mini-carpet shampooer in the closet. On balance, not really that big a deal. It certainly livened up the evening a bit, though. I just hope Jason isn't heading into a little nudist phase, or else this scene might become more common than I'd prefer.

Juliette volunteered to work her school's booth at the 2010 San Diego EarthFair, so we decided to make an afternoon out of it.  Jason and I walked around while Juliette was working, and after her shift was over we got some lunch and hung out.

It was pretty crowded:

Some people were very opinionated:

Others had somewhat questionable fashion sense:

In the end, we had a pretty good time:

And here are the rest of this week's set:

One of my favorite parts of fatherhood is hearing Jason laugh. Fortunately for me, he laughs a lot. He laughs in the bath, he laughs in the car, he laughs at the dinner table. It's not all laughs, of course, he talks and whines and yells and cries, too. But the great thing is that no matter how worked up he might get, he's never too far from laughing again.

Interestingly, Jason seems to have started developing a real sense of humor lately as well. He learned the word "funny" a week or two ago and since then whenever he finds something amusing he not only laughs but also announces loudly that it's funny. More than that, he also understands "not funny." And when you stop and think about it, it's kind of amazing that a person so young and inexperienced with the world can grasp such a slippery concept. Or maybe it's not. After all, most people can discern whether or not something is funny, even if we can't explain why.

As much as I'm fascinated by Jason's continued development, there is one small down side. An example from a car ride this past weekend is illustrative:

Juliette: (sneezes)

Jason: (laughs) Mommy funny!

Juliette: (laughs) Is Mommy funny?

Jason: Funny!

Me: Is Daddy funny?

Jason: No.

Story of my life...