The other day, a friend of mine commented on Facebook that he hoped his baby daughter liked Raffi's music enough to compensate for his own feelings about it. It's something I could have said myself--in fact, I very well may have.

Music has always been an important part of my life. Indeed, when I think back over my life, so much of it is connected to the music I was listening to at the time. I can barely think of my childhood without thinking about how my brother and I used to rock out in the back seat of our mom's car as she played the New Wave mix tape her friend had given her. Middle school makes me think of the Glen Miller my 6th-grade science teacher played when he was teaching me how to ballroom dance. High school, it's listening to U2's Joshua Tree on the bus ride back from the Desert Trip. I bonded with my grandfather through big band music before he died, indie rock was a big part of what brought my brother and I together after I moved out, and jazz was something I connected with my stepdad over. And, of course, Juliette and I met when we were in a musical together.

I've always wanted my children to be exposed to lots of kinds of music, and especially good music. It's something that Juliette and I have argued about from time to time, what's appropriate for children of different ages to listen to. I do believe that some music isn't right for kids, and that it's the parent's job to figure out what's OK and what's not. But there's so much good music out there that I feel it's stifling to limit your kids to classical and children's music. When I was five years old, I was listening to children's music and bubblegum pop, true, but I was also hearing rock, reggae, New Wave, and even Chilean folk music, and I think I'm the better for it.

I used to think that with so much to choose from, you'd be doing your kid a disservice to play them sugary kid's music. Having had firsthand experience with my own child now, though, I've had to rethink things a bit. Oh, I do still play a variety of music for Jason, but the reality is that he likes children's music. It's simple for a good reason: that's what one-year-olds can follow. Mind you, I still think that a lot of children's music is done by hacks who couldn't cut it singing for adults--and, for some reason, that stuff seems to account for about three-quarters of what's on the cable kid's music channel--but there's good stuff, too. Moreover, the simple tunes that Jason can follow not only get more smiles out of him and hold his attention better, but they really seem to be doing a lot to help his mental development along.

The music snob in me used to fret now and again that my kids might end up not having good taste in music. I'd hear what was playing on the Top 40 radio stations and groan in anticipation of having to listen to the 2020 equivalent of Daughtry or post-Fergie Black-Eyed Peas. And every time, Juliette would tell me to just relax and that I had to let them listen to what they wanted to, that shoving my music down their throats would just end up making them resentful. They'd figure it out on their own, and if they didn't, it wouldn't be the end of the world. And, the thing is, she's right. Because, if I'm being honest, I have to admit that when I was ten, I thought Michael Bolton's Soul Provider was pretty awesome. Looking back, I can remember the pained look my mom would get when I'd ask to pop that tape into her car stereo, but she let me and I seem to have come out OK, so I guess when the time comes, I'll be able to do the same.

(By the way, Mom, I never said thanks for that. So, thanks.)

Yesterday saw another first: Jason's first band-aid. The day had been pretty hot, but our back yard cools down a lot in the afternoon so we were out there playing. I had figured that he didn't need shoes since we'd be playing on the grass, but somehow he managed to break the big toenail on his right foot, which I only noticed because of the blood. Honestly, I think I was more upset about it than he was--he barely noticed until I had him in the sink to wash out the wound. I had to get Juliette to help me put the band-aid on, since by the time I got his foot cleaned and dried he was squirming like crazy to get out of my arms and running around again. And, of course, it only took him a few minutes to pick the band-aid off once I let him go. At least he waited long enough for the bleeding to stop.

I admit, I freaked out a little bit when I saw the blood on his toe. It was silly, since it was such a little wound and, as I said, he wasn't bothered by it at all. Still, the thought of my little guy bleeding just horrified me, and I grabbed him and got him cleaned up as fast as I could.

You can imagine that if I reacted so strongly to what was essentially a stubbed toe, how heavily the prospect of surgery must be weighing on my mind.

But let me back up and explain a bit, because it's not nearly as dire as it sounds. Jason has had a lot of ear infections in the past 9 months. It always goes about the same--he gets a cold with a runny nose, then he gets a fever and starts fussing a lot, then we take him to the doctor, he gets some antibiotics, and a few days later he's feeling fine again. His ears clear up completely in a couple of weeks, which then gives us a few weeks until it starts all over again.

The problem is that chronic ear infections can actually cause real damage to the ear. There can be scarring or even hearing loss, not to mention all the pain and discomfort while his ears are clogged. So, if your child gets more than three ear infections in six months, or more than four in a year, you start getting the talk about tubes. (Jason has had about 8 since December.) It is, from all I've heard and have been able to find out, a pretty easy procedure. The doctor makes a small hole in the eardrums and then puts a little plastic tube into the hole to keep it from closing back up. The idea is to allow fluid behind the ear drum a way to drain so that it doesn't clog up and breed bacteria. The procedure done under general anesthesia, but using a mask instead of intravenous delivery, and the whole thing only takes about fifteen minutes. Eight to fourteen months later, the tube generally works its way out on its own and the eardrum then finishes healing. Of course, there are some risks associated with any surgery, but they are pretty minor and, as the ear-nose-throat specialist we saw put it, "it's less dangerous than being in a car for the same amount of time."

I know all of that. I've taken the time and done my homework, read up and talked to the doctors. I've gotten plenty of advice about the whole thing and have done a lot of thinking about it. I've even seen other children close to Jason's age who have had tubes put in and seen how fine they are. I know that I won't be hurting my son to give the green light to this procedure. It won't even be that big a hassle afterwards, since these days they don't even make you do things like put earplugs in for baths. Despite all that, despite the fact that my rational mind is quite calm about the whole thing, the thought of my son having a mask put over his face by a stranger and being put under and having surgical instruments stuck into his ears, it makes me start to hyperventilate a little. He's so young that he won't be able to understand what's going on or why. I can't help but think that he'll be scared. Thinking about that makes me want to cry.

Even worse is the fact that there isn't really a right answer. Because for right now, the doctor isn't even all that concerned about any damage being done--there's no sign of scarring in his ears and the fact that the fluid clears out between infections means there's less risk. I asked the ear-nose-throat specialist pointblank if there is any danger to not doing it, and he answered "No." So it's just a question of how much pain is it worth it to spare him by doing this procedure. Obviously, if he wouldn't get any more infections, we wouldn't want to do it. And both Juliette and I agreed that if he were going to be getting them every few weeks, it would be worth it. But, of course, there's no real way to know what's going to happen, or what might have happened had we decided the other way.

For now, we've decided to wait and see. We're expecting a call from the ear-nose-throat office this week to schedule the surgery, which would happen in six or eight weeks. If, in that time, he continues to do well, we can cancel or postpone it. We're hoping that's what will happen. If he can make it through the next six weeks without an ear infection, we can push it off another six weeks. And if he gets through that as well, it'll be the longest he's gone without a problem since December, which would likely be a sign that he's outgrown it. Still, we're headed into cold season now, and, as I said, he hasn't lasted six weeks since it all started. All we can do is wait and hope. Which, as Tom Petty once (sort of) said, is the hardest part.

This weekend, Juliette's parents were in town for the restaurant expo and, as so often happens when family visits, we took the opportunity to foist our child on them so we could go out. In the past this has meant that they will stay with him for a few hours while we get a bite to eat or go to a movie, but since Jason has been such a good sleeper lately we thought we'd take the next step and try letting him spend the night with his grandparents in their hotel room.

As I'm sure any parent knows, the first whole night away from your child is a strange one. We had no concerns about leaving Jason with Juliette's parents, of course--they've babysat him enough times now that they know his whole routine. And the thought of being able to have a real grown-up's night out and, even more, to really be able to sleep in the next morning... Well, it's better than ice cream, let me just say that. Still, as nice as it is to be able to have a leisurely dinner at a nice restaurant, to not have to eat as quickly as possible in order to finish before Jason gets too rambunctious, after over a year of thinking about him constantly, his absence is so conspicuous when he's not there.

Friday night, we had a lovely--if somewhat pricey--meal at a local restaurant that a couple of friends recommended to us. We had some cocktails to start, lingered over dinner, and even ordered dessert. It was after ten by the time we got home. (Let me repeat that: AFTER TEN. The boy's bedtime is 7:30!)

The next morning, of course, we both woke up at 5:30. And then again at 6. And 6:30. And 7. After spending the past year waking up just before or after dawn to the sound of a baby crying, our bodies are just too much on alert to let us really relax. We made ourselves go back to sleep, though, and didn't get out of bed until about 8:30. It was glorious. So strange how your perspective changes. Ten years ago, making a 9:00 class was torture. Even two years ago, getting up at 8 to be at work by 9 was tough sometimes. But when I say 8:30 these days is glorious, oh, how I mean it. Waking up because I'm ready, taking the time to fully come awake before getting out of bed instead of stumbling down the hall with my eyes half-closed to splash some milk in a sippy cup--I tell you, I can just about see what people see in mornings.

The best part is that Jason had a great time with his grandparents and slept well. So, of course, when they offered to take him for a second night, we accepted. Glorious.

Jason is in the process of moving from the infant group to the toddler group at his day care, and it's been kind of a rough transition. Starting last week, he's been spending most of his time in the toddler room, which means he's officially done with bottles (they're not allowed in the toddler room) and he's also down to one nap a day. On top of that, he seems to be going through some kind of growth spurt, since he is more or less constantly eating. Today he ate two-thirds of a banana, a plum, and two handfuls of cereal for breakfast, and for lunch and snacks he had cereal, Ritz crackers, Spanish rice, a bunch of orange slices, saltines (twice), and a quesadilla, and I'm sure he had a big dinner as well. He also pooped five times. The kid is like a pooping machine all of a sudden.

Anyway, as I was saying, all of this change has put him in a rather bad mood. His teachers have reported that he cries whenever he sees someone else getting a bottle, and that he's been fussy and tired. He's also apparently figured out where they keep the food in his classroom, and will stand there and point and whine until he gets it. All of which is more or less in line with what he's been like at home. He's been very demanding with us, wanting everything and wanting it now, and flopping around on the floor throwing a tantrum when he doesn't get it.

Juliette and I have been, understandably, pretty frustrated and tired ourselves. It's amazing how exhausting a kid can be. Still, there's been nothing we can really do but try to push through, and we've also been taking the opportunity to start setting boundaries for Jason and working on communicating with him. We've also pushed his bedtime about 20 minutes earlier in an attempt to make sure he's getting enough sleep. Nonetheless, we've fretted a lot about him being unhappy, and also about him becoming "that kid." He's always been such a sweet boy and he's seemed to be a favorite of a bunch of the teachers at his day care, which has always been inordinately gratifying to me. I want him to always be so sweet.

He seems to have turned a corner over the last couple of days, though, as he woke up in a good mood that lasted the whole morning. He was very smiley while he ate his breakfast, almost none of which ended up on the floor. (And what did end up on the floor was accidental instead of as a "THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR THWARTING ME!" demonstration.) He didn't fall asleep on the car rides to or from school, either, and his teachers reported that he had a very good day. Hopefully this is the start of a new trend, one that works better for all three of us.

As a final note, I was planning to write this yesterday but for once my slacking off has turned out well, because I really like to be able to close with a happy ending.

Dear Jason,

Today you turn one year old. You don't know what birthdays mean yet, but your mother and I are both amazed that it's already been a whole year since we met you. In some ways it feels like you've been here our whole lives, in others it still feels like you're brand new. Except, you're already so different from that first day. I remember how calm you were at first, just looking around, taking it all in. You squeezed back when I held your hand the first time. I held you a lot--you fit in one hand pretty easily on that first day.

Your hands are a lot bigger now. You're a lot bigger. And you smile and laugh and shake your head "no" and wave "hi" and run around and make me and your mom chase you all over the house. You're quite a charmer. You love people. You had your first birthday party a couple of days ago and you had a great time. And everybody else had a great time, too, watching you run and play and yell. I made everybody record a little birthday greeting for you--one of these days you'll watch it and think "Man, he really didn't mind making people embarrass themselves, did he?" (I didn't. I'd do it again for you, buddy.)

Everybody kept telling me how beautiful you are. I obviously think you're the most beautiful baby I've ever seen, but I used to wonder whether it was just parental bias, and maybe everybody was just saying it because that's what you say to new parents. But people keep saying things like "I know everybody always says 'Your baby is so cute' but, seriously, your baby is just gorgeous, I mean that." And total strangers will stop us in airports and malls to tell us. In fact, that happened just the day before yesterday when we were at the Obon Festival in Salinas--some lady I'd never seen before came over to tell us that you were just so beautiful that it gave her chills. Which, actually, I thought was kind of a weird thing to say, but it does go to show what effect you have on people. And you were looking extra cute, wearing the jinbei that your Uncle Ben brought back from Japan last summer.

I still can't believe how much you're learning and growing. Like when your Auntie gave you the toy phone for your birthday, you put it to your ear and said "Hi." You were holding it upside down and backwards, but still, how'd you learn that? It doesn't even look like my or your mom's phone. It seems like all of a sudden you're doing all kinds of things like that.

What do I want to say to you on your birthday? It's so hard to sum up what I'm feeling in just a few words. Mainly, just that I'm so happy to know you. You've been such a joy, and knowing you and watching you grow has taught me so much. I hope that being near you will help me be more like you, because you're charming and social and active and absolutely fearless. And so inquisitive--you want to see everything and touch everything. And put everything in your mouth. (I could probably skip that last part.) And watching you have that curiosity reminds me of that same feeling in myself, that I used to have when I was a child. Everybody talks about "the wonder of a child" and how being a parent brings it back to you. It's true in ways I didn't realize just hearing it. These are the things you do for me.

Today you're going to go swimming with some of your friends, and on Saturday you're going to have a second party with all of your San Diego friends. I hope that your first birthday is lots of fun for you, and that the next year and all your life bring you health, wisdom, and happiness. I love you, buddy.

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?

It's been four weeks since my last update and things have been pretty hectic. I've been putting in a lot of hours at work, and Jason hasn't been a very happy camper when I've been home. Between teething and ear infections and colds and everything, he's had kind of a rough few weeks. It's seemed that way to me, at least--he's been pretty fussy. Plus, with his newfound mobility, he's also gained new reasons to be frustrated--namely, that I won't let him do whatever he wants. Like when he wants to investigate the electrical outlets, for example, or when he wants to pull lamps down onto his head. And with that new frustration, he's figured out how to throw temper tantrums.

At times this whole parenting thing can be really trying. Sometimes I feel like I want to tear my hair out, others, I just feel really tired. So it's nice to be able to capture those bright moments, to be able to play them back and relive the bliss that the good times bring. Which brings me to the main point of this post: a video.

Jason's favorite toy is the little phone-shaped rattle that's part of his music table. He carries it around with him as he explores the living room, managing to push it on top of the stuff he's climbing on, or under the couch. A couple of weeks ago I was playing with him and showed him how I could make the rattle jump by slapping it with my hand. It was, as you can see, a big hit.

Lately, Jason has become somewhat single-minded in pursuit of a particular goal: harassing the dog. Up until just a few weeks ago, he had paid almost no attention to the dog at all. Of course, for the first little while, he didn't pay much attention to anything. Then he was mostly interested in me or Juliette or his own hands and feet. Later, his toys. Now, it's the dog. As soon as he becomes aware of Cooper, Jason immediately lunges, trying to get two tiny fistsful of dog hair. As you might imagine, Cooper is not terribly fond of this, so he has been learning how to anticipate Jason's notice and run away.

Mind you, as soon as it's Jason's  feeding time, you can be sure that Cooper has taken up station under the high chair, hoping that something will fall. Last night I let him eat the remains of one of Jason's teething biscuits and he was over the moon.

Anyway, with Jason's newfound mobility, Cooper has a bit more to worry about. He seems to be taking it well, though.

I'd have thought that my next blog entry would have been about Jason's swimming lessons, which started the Saturday before last. And, to be sure, they were a whole lot of fun for all of us. But while I've been procrastinating about writing, Jason seems to have turned another big developmental corner and has become an almost entirely new baby. In the past two weeks, he's figured out how to scoot himself from one place to another, how to pick himself up on his hands and knees, and he's tantalizingly close to learning how to crawl for real. He's also figured out how to sit up on his own. He almost never does sit up, though, because he's constantly on the move.

It's amazing the personality changes that have come with his newfound mobility. I guess Jason's always been curious and into exploring, but now that he can actually get around a bit, he more or less constantly wants to be checking things out and pulling himself around. What's astonishing is how obvious that desire is--he really wants things all of a sudden. Unfortunately, he still hasn't quite figured out crawling, which means that he's nearly constantly frustrated. If we pick him up, he squirms to turn around and see out, or even to get out of our arms. But when we put him down, he rapidly gets upset at his inability to get his arms and legs coordinated. He gets this really intense look on his face when he's trying to crawl and you can tell that he's really focusing and trying to figure it out. What's more, you can see that he knows how close he is, which is all the more frustrating for him.

What's even harder is that Jason has no way of expressing what it is he wants, so things have gotten a little more challenging. Too, he's so interested in all the stuff around him that feedings and sleeping have gotten more difficult again. On the other hand, it seems like his language skills are also starting to develop. He's been responding to his name for a couple of months now, I think, but we noticed that lately he seems to be understanding more of the words and signs we've been using. The other day I asked him if he wanted some milk, along with the sign, and he immediately (even a little franticly) turned and looked at Juliette. His babbling is also including a lot more sounds than it used to.

When I think about how fast this is all happening, it just blows my mind. I mean, it's only been a few weeks since he wasn't even able to turn himself over. I feel like I can hardly keep up--no sooner do I get used to one thing than it's different again. But, man, it's so cool to see it happening.