I saw my baby

We're already into month 6 of J's life and though I'm not one to wax sentimental about...well...anything, really, there are some pieces of him that I have enough experience now to recognize as fleeting that I want to remember next month and years from now. For example, right now J and I do a LOT of rocking. We rock while he takes his bottles, we rock to sleep for naps and at night, we rock while reading stories, we rock when he feels bad, we rock during some naps, we rock and rock and rock and it often ends in sleep. But J is the kind of baby who want to be totally asleep before you put him down or else he protests loud and long. And I have discovered that there is one sure fire and adorable way to tell if he's really asleep: when he officially drops into REM sleep, he always smiles in his sleep and, more than half the time, he chuckles, a deep throaty sound that always makes me want to laugh (but I don't, because, clearly, why ruin all the effort to get him there in the first place?).

Next, J has some funny physical quirks that he will most likely grow into or out of. He still sucks his tongue and his lips enthusiastically, as he has since he discovered he could. He has also become very fond of his right foot and putting it in his mouth, a relatively new feat. He also becomes rigid and shakes when he's very excited or very disturbed by something, usually the former, a little trick my mother says I used to do as well, so I've decided not to see these fits as seizures but as inheritance.

Because he has us for parents, J also loves music. His favorite tune to "dance" to right now is "Eye of the Tiger," during which I hold him on my lap and he bounces to the very strong opening beat. But any music will do: he lets me sing endless Primary songs and snippets from musicals and made up lullabies every day and lately the husband has taken to singing to him from the church hymnal when he's restless, in addition to the constant singing the husband engages in whenever J is around, serenading him with everything from Cake and U2 to John Denver and Al Green. J himself doesn't do much singing yet, but he will contentedly and absorbedly listen to anything we throw at him. And he LOVES any of his toys that make noise, of which there are few because his mother is an ogre with a very sensitive sense of hearing. Or, as the husband puts it, "Mommy is a music hater."

He's been vocalizing up a storm for some time now, but for some reason J's favorite place to "talk" is the changing table. Get him with his pants down and he becomes a chatty Kathy! One of his favorites sounds for all the world to me like "gully, gully, gully," and he usually says it with his fingers in his mouth (which is why I'm not entirely sure what he's actually saying, but who cares?).

J is also a ladies' man, and any lady will do, not just mommy. Regardless of the woman in question, he will stare at her until she notices him and then grin for all he's worth. He looks like he's going to crack his face open. It's pretty darn cute...and a little pathetic!

Shadows still fascinate the little guy, enough that if we don't watch him, he'll stare straight at the sun through our sheers in his quest to find as many shadows as possible. He can be entertained pretty reliably for quite a while looking at shadows on the walls of our house, making our many windows even more of a good investment!

There's more, of course, but entries have to stop some time. Fortunately, his growing and changing won't!