Sunday, September 12, 2004

Time

Alex is growing to be such a cool little boy that it's hard for me sometimes to think that it's all going by so fast. It's already been a whole year, and granted, it hasn't been the easiest year, but it was a year of discoveries and new things for him and us. I was messing around with Zoe today, holding her by her shoulders and making her walk on the ground, and it's so odd to see how much Alex has grown because he was once that little too. Just this weekend, watching him walk around on his own, picking up toys and amusing himself with it, and learning to hand me toys when he needs help or simply wants to share - I'm just in awe of him. Just fallen completely in love with this little drool bucket.

Although if Zoe is reading this, she needs not to be afraid, we'll fall in love with her soon too. It wasn't until Alex started to smile before we started to really be attached to him. I know it sounds heartless, but when you have newborns, being a parent is hardly a rewarding experience. That's why you should always give new parents plenty of compliments and praise, because that's the only consolation of being a new parent consists of. Newborns are cute, but they're really hard on anyone who's trying to stay sane or maintain some kind of order. Once Alex smiled, it was the first true reward, after 4 months of sleepless nights and crying and poop, of being a parent. Thenafter it was just easy to appreciate him.

Right now, Zoe does have a sweet little face when she sleeps, and does involuntarily crack a smile every once in a while. When she's awake though, she's often crying a lot, or making a rather disgruntled expression on her face. Her eyebrows cave inward to form some sort of discontented look, and her lips pout on the verge of crying. When she is awake, she looks around at the lights, or right at you with that Look of Discontent, at which point you just have to make fun of her. Make her do a silly dance or something.

It is hard to believe that a year has gone by, and with Zoe's arrival, I'm sure that time will speed up twice as fast. Already 4 weeks is coming up, and last week just flew right by. Do I have anything to prove for it personally? Not really. I did a few things not worthy of mentioning, just routine chores or random tidbits of creative surges. Did Zoe do anything? Sleep longer and put on some weight. Alex further perfected his walk and found out today that throwing a rubber ball around is pretty entertaining. Perhaps to remedy my failure to appreciate what's really going on right now, I try to videotape a lot of things, take a lot of pictures. Because before I know it, they'll be in school, then college, then marriage. Let's say that right now, I'm not really thinking about being a grandparent though. Just doing some traveling once the kids are out.

I really want to go on a vacation. I need a vacation!

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