On Julian

It's not always easy having the world's best baby. Okay, usually it is. But I want you all to remind me of this when I complain about him as a three year old who is sprinting down the street without pants on screaming no because I asked him to come inside. Once, long ago, he was a damn good baby.

I closed the library last night, which means I don't get to bed until just before one. Luckily, or not luckily, Julian slept in until 8:30. Did he though? Who knows? When I went in there he was sitting up with a happy look on his face playing with his stuffed bear. For all I know he'd been up for an hour just loving the crap out of that bear. He's a good boy that one.

We head downstairs and grab some breakfast. He eats fistfuls of Cheerios but only gums the toast. At this point I decided that I needed to work out. So I put him in the car, checked on the stroller and headed off to the park. He's just learned to crawl and is pretty in love with moving around. Plus, his nap time is 10 AM. However, he dutifully sat in his stroller, smiling down at me as I cranked out some push ups, pull ups, etc. He smiled, kicked his legs in the stroller, sometimes gazed off at the light coming through the branches of a large tree for roughly half an hour while I finished up. He's a good boy.

Knowing that it was nap time I started to head home. Then I realized that I needed to pick up sun glasses. On the way, I decided that I'd also go grocery shopping. This, despite the fact that he was starting to moan to himself, which is code for "I'm going to sleep in about five minutes." After we picked up some sunglasses I strapped him into the shopping cart and he sort of lolled over drunkenly. I held him up and asked him to stick with me during the shopping trip, so he could get a proper nap at home. Mid trip though, his little head pops up and he starts banging his hands on the shopping cart, happily mumbling to himself and patting my hand when I put it on the cart and smiling back at me when I lean in with his piercing little blue eyes. The rest of the shopping trip was a delight of getting my hand patted, giving him little pieces of a muffin, and watching him pound away at the cart.

Here is one of the strange things about my son. He's not even a year old, but he's already just fun to be around. He's not a crazily happy baby. He's just always riding along on a wave of contentment, and he's a baby,  so he's cute. He's just a joy to hang out with. On the way out of the store, after he finished munching on his muffin, I put him down in his car seat, and I was reflecting, as writing types do, sometimes leaving the moment to construct a past moment, thinking of how exactly I'd frame the day and how good he was, well, he reached his little hand up with sleepy eyes looking right at me and ran it very gently across my cheek. And, if I was the sort who cried at the occasional cinematic nature of life, I would have. Within seconds, he'd fallen into a deep sleep. I kissed his fingers and told him that I loved him.