Our Growing Son

Well its been almost three months since our son was born and the changes he has been through have been absolutely amazing.  What I once thought were great strides made in his development actually paled in comparison to what he is now capable of.  I know that part of my excitement is probably because of the fact that I am a new father.  But when you look at a newborn's life from birth onward, its amazing to see how they develop, gain personality, increase motor skills, and become in essence more "human".  Granted, my son can't walk or talk yet, but to see progression every week is awesome.  It seems that just over the past few weeks, a light bulb has gone off in his head, and his progression seemed to jump.  All of a sudden, he became much more fascinated with almost any moving object that he could see.  He now actively looks around for what is in the room, searching even more than he did before.  And he absolutely loves the orange hued dragonfly stained glass lamp in the corner of our living room.  He could be in the middle of a little fit, (due many times either to excessive gas or excessive tiredness) and a surefire remedy is to hold him up to the lamp and he is transfixed.  He seems to be drawn into the glowing orange, fascinated by the undulating glass and the black lines separating and giving form.  He will follow a person around a room with his eyes, follow our dogs and cat, movement and color are his things right now. 

But thats just the beginning of what he is now doing.  While he was always moving his arms and legs (even while inside his mother), he now moves with a little more purpose.  One of his favorite things to do now is to see how many fingers he can fit inside his mouth to suck on.  Occasionally the fingers go a little too far back and he chokes himself, but he is slowly learning.  He has also attempted the double fist in the mouth after clasping his hands together, but that hasn't quite worked out yet.  It is not just his fingers though that he wants to put in his mouth, its anybody's finger if he can get a hold of it.  Laughter is just over the horizon; he wants to laugh, but just can't quite get it together yet.  And talk about leg muscles.  I swear that when he can start crawling and walking, my wife and I are going to be in trouble because I don't think he will ever stop.  He is like the energizer bunny with his legs; riding air bikes, climbing imaginary stair masters, or simply kicking as hard as he can over and over and over again.  With support, he can lift his body up on his legs, hold it there, and back down and up.  Balance is still absent, but you can see its tendrils slowly grabbing hold as our son's head becomes more steady, his wavering a little less, and  his overly spastic movements on the decline.   Pretty soon, he will be on the move.

Crawling is probably a month out for him.  While on his belly, he is starting to move his arms in a crawling motion, but never gets anywhere and gets tired quickly.  But all in due time, just to see the start of the movement involved in crawling is awesome.  As each day goes by, I am sure that he will figure out the world a little bit more and seek to learn as much as he can.  He already has his favorite books, letting us know through his giddy face and almost laughter.  I know it may seem odd, but it seems like three months has taken a lot longer than three months, but in a good way.  It doesn't seem to me to have flown by as fast as I thought it might (ask me at a year and I might have a different response).  But perhaps that is because in the first few months, development is slower.  I dont' really know.  All I do know is that I cherish every moment I have with my son and am excited with everything that he does.  Another positive side effect of having a baby in the house is that I can act like a complete lunatic and its perfectly ok, because our son laughs at it.  I wouldn't trade anything for the time I have with our son.  I simply love to hold him, to see him stare intently back at me, just getting to know each other.  And I love when he falls asleep in my arms, either to a song or a book being read.  As biased as I am, he is one cute baby either awake or asleep.  I am excited to see what happens in the months ahead, but am never forgetting to live in the moment with him.