He's on hour 12 of sleep, so of course I'm wide awake.

It's 6:19am & my husband + baby are both sleeping. I, on the other hand, am awake - with a brain that is swimming with ideas & to-do lists. We have a lot going on, & while I should probably be sleeping, I'm up! I've gone for months & months with 5-6 hours of cumulative sleep per night, & I think I've learned to just need less. Speaking of sleeping, Q flipped a little switch in his brain a few days ago & decided that finally sleeping 12 hours straight was a good idea (an excellent idea, really!) & that's his new status quo. I finally dropped his dream feed - which I'm sure was more disruptive than helpful at this point - & all of a sudden his morning chatting sessions at 5:30am are finally over. Of course, I'm still waking up, but still! I think I've finally gotten a glimpse of how people have one more than one child.

He's almost 9 months! 9 months! That's almost a year old, which is almost two years old, which is a TODDLER, which means that he's essentially starting kindergarten in like 2 weeks. How does this happen?! He's growing up! So fast. There are these glimpses of boy coming through that just baffle me. I'm not rocking him any more when I put him down for a nap. He just doesn't love to be cradled any more, so he's up on my shoulder instead, just for a minute while we sing our song. But his head immediately rests on my chest & he squeezes my shoulder, & this means that mostly, I repeat our song another one or two times, because how could I put him down? He knows how to reach out & grab my hands so that he can pull himself up to standing (which is always followed by a massive + obviously pleased with himself grin), & he's somehow able to scoot across the room (backwards?) off his blanket during the 4.7 seconds I'm in the other room. I've never witnessed how this actually takes place. He sits & plays with his toys so very well, smiles at strangers everywhere we go, & wants to eat everything (he chewed on a lime during lunch yesterday). He's so, so happy to see us when he wakes up in the morning & from naps, literally squealing with with happiness. The ego boost is amazing, & gives me hope that I am just maybe doing something right in the world. I love it. And then there's the soft spot that he has for his dad. He clearly just loves him so much, & beams (BEAMS!) every time he walks in the door after work. I think he's well aware that having Mike around is extra fun & extra special. What else! He's talking! Well. Babbling, but he's learning all sorts of sounds (gaga, dada, & nothing close to mama) & he's especially chatty in the mornings. Love.

Mike made the comment the other morning that blogging is so 2007. This made me giggle, but really, I feel like I've blogged for different reasons over the years. It started out as a way to stay in touch with my family who was 3,000 miles away after our marriage & move to New York. It evolved into some sort of travel + food + NYC journal, sprinkled with bits of overs sharing I'm sure, & then morphed into a place to share & organize my photos & stories. I'm not sure what it really is now, except just about Quinn. Our life is so different than it was a year ago, & there are maybe less exciting things to post about, but I am so not out there with the goal to entertain or impress. For now, I just want a written + visual record of the fact that we love Quinn & that we are so happy to be his parents. Especially now that he's become such an expert at sleeping.

(Because we're not all happy all the time, of course.)