Mom's Bragging

As I write this message, Kiefer is in his crib singing to himself. When he falls asleep at someone else's house, he never stays asleep during the ride home. He wakes up and looks around wonderingly--my husband says it seems like he's having the most vivid and tangible dream possible. He smiles and cuddles all the way to his crib, and then he sings himself back to sleep. This is such a frequent occurance that I can't imagine ever forgetting it, but it is so sweet I want to make sure that I don't.

Thus, for the memory's sake, I am going to commit to, er, cyber-paper some of Kiefer's most precious characteristics. In addition to singing himself to sleep, he sings himself through his whole day. He is constantly babbling, and the pitch and cadence of his voice give it a very sing-song feel. When he's not singing, he's shouting, and it doesn't matter where he is. He'll shout at people eating lunch across the room, he'll shout into the phone, he'll shout at trees he passes in his stroller. He loves his voice. When he was a newborn he screamed often throughout the day (and night) and my friend Jen said she believed that he would be articulate when he got older, and I think she's right. As a newborn he knew no other way than screaming, now he babbles as he explores what his voice can do, and more and more the tone of his babbling resembles adult speech, even though it's still nonsensical.

He suddenly discovered waving and blowing kisses all in one day, and then a few days later he discovered walking and that put the first two discoveries out of his mind. Try as I may, I cannot get him to wave anymore, but he does acknowledge people by vigorously shaking his head and happily announcing "aahh!" He has been particularly pleased to discover a handful of people who will do this in return, and he'll carry on entire conversations with them in this way.

And speaking of walking, he is becoming more and more confident at this new skill. He holds his hands high and walks with his mouth hanging wide open, but now he is able to stop and stand still for awhile or change direction or even squat down to pick something up before continuing on his way. It is amusing how often he suddenly plops to the ground, and I keep chuckling to think how absurd it would be for adults to do that.

It stikes me that I haven't mentioned any of my husband's "precious characteristics," but somehow it doesn't seem as interesting to say that Todd has no problem walking, waving, or talking, and he doesn't need to sing to go to sleep.