Looking Less Like a Disgruntled Old Man By the Day

Last month:

This month:

I love my baby dearly, and I am still able to admit that for a long time now he's looked decidedly more like a troll or an old man than a sweet little boy. But perhaps we are entering a wonderage (complete with more social personality and sleeping through the night perhaps?) because I have noticed a change lately. In the last few days Michael has really begun to inch up on the adorable scale. (Whew!)

When we were up at my parents' house last week, Michael, Harper, and I were all hanging out in my bed. Harper and I were talking to him in that ooey-gooey voice reserved for the smallest of babies and he looked squarely at her and gave her a huge, gummy, ear-to-ear, crinkly-eyed grin. His first smile, smiled, appropriately, at his big sister. It took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes. I will always treasure that moment. How special for Harper that she'll always know Michael smiled his first smile for her. When she tells people about it she says, "Michael smiled at me all by himself!"

Speaking of Harper, Swistle recently commented that she loved the three's for the talking, and she is so right. My brother came over for lunch on Monday and was yawning (a little too much partying, Jamie???). Harper asked if he was tired and invited him to have a "napover" with her.

I love, love, love the insight into Harper's thoughts that she is constantly providing through her chatter. I love how she is learning to use language. AND I love the childish mispronunciations and misunderstandings that come with learning language. Many of them I hate to correct because all too soon she'll outgrow them on her own. (Remember "fyock?" Sigh.) Right now my favorite mispronunciation is elevator; Harper says, "elegator." And when she says remember, she leaves the "b" sound out, "rememer?" And many of her "th" sounds come out like "f"; so thirty is "firty." These little quirks are something about this age that I know I'm going to miss.