Happy New Year, Jho!

Last January you were a tiny hope. You were the possibility of being. Now here you are!  Almost four months old! It is humbling what one year can do.

I was thinking about how glad I am that you were born in September because it meant that 2008 was all about you. I found out that you were definitely coming into our lives on your Uncle Adam’s birthday, January 15th. This coming January 15th will find you able to scoot across the floor (slowly), smile and, recently, laugh (that’s your new and, definitely, my favorite development that happens most often when I put the top of my head on your belly and wiggle it back and forth which makes my hair tickle your face. You love it for some reason). You can hold your head up without much struggle at all and you just rolled over for the first time! So much progress and so much more to come.

When I look at you, you feel like my earliest science lessons in potential and kinetic energy. Last January I felt like we were a science experiment. With each passing month I felt we were on a roller coaster creeping higher and higher up the first major hill. Your birth felt like an exhilerating plunge that sent you out on what will be the most incredible ride. Now that you are here, I feel like you are so full of energy – a ball set in motion, a roller coaster on a thrilling, white-knuckled, exhilerating…zoom! – and all I can do is try to keep up and help keep the train on its track.

Happy New Year, buddy! I hope each new year is a really fun ride.

p.s. I can’t include a special New Year’s picture of you doing anything celebratory because you slept through it. Way to ring in 2009!