steps.

Yesterday Jack picked up a toy and put it in his mouth. For the first time. It amazes me how much he changes week to week--he spent a week staring at his fist, turning it over and over, and then one day he was grasping for things (my hair, mostly). It has made me realize how much time is a continuum; I am here, now, with Jack, and he is bigger than he has ever been and I know I will remember this time, here, now, but that he will never again be this small. In a way I feel like I need to be absorbing, absorbing, absorbing, not missing anything, because this time is passing and it won't come back. He will never be as little as he was yesterday. Today he seems so big.

Success!

A friend who is 20 weeks pregnant came over yesterday. I remember being 20 weeks pregnant like it was last week but also like it was 10 years ago. I remember the ultrasound and seeing Jack's cute profile, and being so excited to meet him. He had felt rather remote until I saw him; being who I am, up until that point I had also been almost positive that something was going to go horribly wrong with my pregnancy. Forget it--every day of my pregnancy I was worried that something was going to go wrong. It's my personality. (I'm so great at parties...) It's funny, because I approached the actual labor and birth without the smallest bit of fear. I was positive that if I could make it that far I would be just fine. And I was.

I'm trying to learn how to be here, in the present. To live in the present is to decimate anxiety, and I have lived my life as an anxious person. I realized a few weeks ago that my constant worry about the future wasn't actually preventing anything terrible from happening; instead, I was not experiencing this incredible, precious time that I have with my son. Nursing is my meditation: look at Jack, breath in his wonderful smell, listen to the perfect small sounds he makes. He doesn't know anxiety. I can't teach him to live that way, it won't help him in his life.

Today we went to the last farmer's market of the year. Joel and I put Jack in his hat and suffice to say he was not happy about it.

NOT HAPPY about his new hat.

All love.