Five Things My Son Did This Week

1. Yesterday afternoon I was having kind of a rough day. Charlie's been kind of a challenge lately, and I had a lot of work I was trying to get done, and I was beat. Emily was a little sick and came home early, so she was watching Jack for a bit while I worked; I think she was reading him a story in his room.

Suddenly I heard Jack thumping out of his room. I looked around the corner and there he was, walking along, holding up the book "Pat the Bunny" in one hand, and pointing at me. He had come to the page where "Now YOU feel Daddy's scratchy face," and the book just wasn't going to cut it - he had to feel his actual Daddy's scratchy face. And so he did. And my day was instantly better.

2. It's not enough that Jack has started walking, now he has to carry things while he walks. His heavy, musical ball. His little musical school bus. Heavy things, in other words, that he really shouldn't be walking around with, and he typically drops, nearly on his foot. (Not yet, but tomorrow is another day.)

The other day I heard him walking in the next room, saying "AHHRRR.....AHHHRRR...." I looked out, and there he is, walking, carrying his Fun Fair, which is about half his size. He then dropped it. Not on his foot. He paused. Sighed. Then stooped over to pick it up again.

3. Sometimes he likes to stand in the front door. I lock the storm door, but he can still stand there and look out the window at the cars, trucks, people and dogs. So on Tuesday he was standing there, looking out the window, saying "HI!" as people walked along the sidewalk approaching the house, and "BUH BYE," as people walked along the sidewalk away from the house. "HI! HI! HI! ...... BUH BYE....BUH BYE....BUH BYE...."

4. I'm not going to push him toward sports any more than is a father's primal instinct and, yay, solemn duty to do so, but I'm happy to report that he's developed a certain fondness for the object known as Ball, or as Jack says, "Bawwwh." Pictures in a book: "Bawwwh!" His plush, soft soccer ball, which he walks around carrying. "Bawwwh." And of course the little plastic balls from the Fun Fair, which roll underneath every piece of furniture as if sucked in by a magnet. So frequently I'll walk into the room and he'll be half underneath his crib, or the dining room table, or some other piece of furniture, stretching forward, his little butt sticking out, and from under the piece of furniture, his little muffled voice, saying "Bawwwh.....Bawwwh...."

5. As I was writing this, I heard the thump thump thump thump of little feet. My son came bursting into the computer room, clad only in a new diaper, hair dripping from the bath his Mom had just given him. He stood solidly, facing me, glowing with happiness and pride, either because he'd walked so far on his own or looked so cute, it's hard to say which.

His Mom arrived behind him. "Jack, we need to get your pajamas on."

Jack: "BUH bye! BUH BYE....!" And then, as she walked him off to his room, hand-in-hand: "Nigh-Nigh....Nigh-Nigh...Nigh-Nigh..."

Nigh-Nigh.