He's a morning person and I'm not

Reed is such a morning person. He's so happy first thing in the morning, when he smiles it looks as tho he can barely contain himself. How can anyone resist this face? In the dim light his eyes sparkle. This would be my favorite part of the day except that I'm usually slightly grumbly and trying to figure out how to scheme my way back into bed. It isn't long before his charms successfully melt my heart and by the time I'm fully awake he's giggling and so am I.

Week by week it gets easier to make him laugh. He's ticklish in his ribs and loves when I use a deep raspy voice. I can say pretty much anything in this voice and it pleases him.

Mondays and Wednesdays are my busiest days now. In addition to being workdays they have now become college days as well. I drop Reed off at school in the morning and pick him up after work so we can spend a couple hours together before Mike gets home and I leave for college. Its so hard to leave them! It doesn't matter how many times I give a goodbye kiss, or tell them to "have fun" and "I'll be back soon." I just watch Reed sitting on Mike's arm with his hand around Mike's neck and his little eyes following me as I gather my coat and books. I wonder, as I often do throughout any day, what little thoughts are going through his head.

Every day, I wish I could explain things to him. I wish I could tell him that when he pinches the back of my arm while he's eating, it causes me pain. I wish I could tell him where we are going when we get in the car and what we'll see when we get there. I wish I could explain to him that its bed time and we want him to put himself to sleep in his crib at night. That we still love him, we are not abandoning him and we do not wish to scare him. If only I could just convey that he can trust me and there is a reason that I do the things that I do. That its all for him. All of it.

I love him completely, through and through and to my core. When his bottom lip starts to quiver and he begins to cry I my heart sinks. When he grins at me, his tiny finger clenched between his gums as he chews on it, my heart grows wings.

He changes so quickly. He discovers new abilities weekly and becomes more aware of his body. He's been checking out his feet lately. A common one for babies his age right now. He's not overly obsessed with them but he thinks they're pretty cool. Standing is his favorite thing and I just love looking at his tiny body as he strains to keep his balance. He's progressively becoming more comfortable on his tummy. We show him a toy and put it out of reach hoping that he'll try to figure out a way to get to it. At first I thought he was just sleepy when he'd lay his head down on one cheek, but then his butt would come up in the air as he tucked his knees under him and we were able to see that he was trying to get some leverage! Unfortunately, once he tries to launch, his toes shoot behind him... and he goes nowhere.

He's very strong and we can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do. Its difficult to bend his knees or his hips because he will use everything in him to resist us!

His babbling is adorable. I think his favorite time to babble is in church of course. We were in class and the leader of the discussion asks a rhetorical question with the expectation of meeting silence. It was the type of question that no one would oppose, but Reed took the opportunity to tell everyone how he felt. For a moment the leader thought someone was really disagreeing!

This delighted everyone in the room. Reed continued! I placed my hand over his mouth and did the embarrassed mom apology look to the people looking at us. I was met with grins and chuckles as well as understanding nods from the other parents. Some were whispering, "he's fine! Nobody minds!"

Reed is still figuring out this church thing, we haven't quite established a perfect eat/nap/listen routine that fits with the schedule yet. The fist time we went, he'd fallen asleep on the way there and woke up to the sound of a roomful of voices singing all together. The look on his face was priceless! He'd never heard so many people sing at the same time! Usually it's just his mom- but this was quite simply amazing!

We haven't yet used the church nursery, but I'm sure we'll try it out soon. They have a great area for the babies to play and sing with the nursery leader. I promise you a picture if we take him this weekend.

Here is a video I just took of him after waking up from his nap in his pack n play.