Now and Then

I decided to compare Gideon's newborn pictures to his month-old pictures. While it's only been about 5 weeks and a few more inches and pounds later (no not me, Gideon), it's easy to see that many things have changed.

He moves his head, smiles and focuses on things. He is also becoming a little spoiled.....just a bit. This is how I can tell.

He has those cries where you know that he has either pooped or peed in his diaper or is really, really hungry. Those cries are unique whereby in between breaths there is silence, though he still has the crying face. It's almost like lightning and thunder. In a thunder storm, once you see lightning strike, you know that loud thunder will soon follow. You just don't know when. Similarly, once Gideon has collected air in his lungs, he then bursts out in song.

Then there are those cries where he squints his eyes and peeks at you to see if you are looking. That's right, he peeks! In moments like this I say, usually in my loud voice, "aha, I gotcha!"

Then he really cries. But that isn't the point.

The point is that he knows that if he cries, he'll get picked up and rocked gently. He also knows he'll hear either Mommy or Daddy sing, whisper or repeatedly say in a soft voice, "it's ok. it's ok."

The characteristics of those sneaky cries are also unique. These cries have no pause and sounds more like a whine rather than a cry. I know a whine when I hear one. Isn't that right hunnie? (Hunnie = Alexa)

So, I tried teaching him a lesson during one of his sneaky crying sessions and did not rock him (He was already in my arms). While it broke my heart, I noticed that after phases of crying and multiple moments of silence, he just stopped. Once I made eye contact, I noticed him staring at me with the biggest, most adorable brown eyes I've ever seen. A second later, he started crying .... cough cough whining cough cough.... again.

Lo and behold, I started rocking him rhythmically and told him that "every little thing was going to be all right" ala Bob Marley style.

He then opened his eyes ever so slightly to see if I was still looking.

The moral of the story?

Gideon 1 / Alex 0.