The Joelster

I haven't posted about Joel in awhile, so I thought I'd take a break and catch up with our little guy. That is, if we can catch him!

He has no fear. His crawl finally kicked in high gear and there's been no stopping him since. Gabriel was pretty content to stay in one room and play for awhile. Not Joel. He is constantly circling the house and I have to watch him non-stop! He crawls with purpose, lifting his hands way up and smacking them down on the floor as he goes. Up until a couple of weeks ago he was pulling up to his knees anywhere he could reach. But then that changed to feet. He's already had some bad falls and has learned to be cautious when he pulls up on new things. And then, Thursday afternoon I looked up from cooking dinner to see him walk across the living room pushing the footstool my grandfather made, which was shocking, funny and sentimental all at the same time. It's the perfect height for him to lean on.

He can communicate already without talking. Gabriel had this cute move in his highchair, where he would lean his head over, always to his right side, and we'd say, "Aawwwww look at the baby!" Joel started doing it, but to the left, and I always touch his face when I say the Awwwwww! Yesterday I didn't and he took his own hand and touched the side of his face while making sure I was watching him. I caught him holding the toy phone up to his ear one day. At the zoo last week, he had been fussing about something for awhile, and I finally noticed him trying to unfasten the strap around him in the stroller.

He loves to follow Gabriel around and do exactly what he's doing. Same toys, instruments, it doesn't matter what it is. They play a crawling form of chase all over the house. For some reason, he wants to put his mouth on everything all of a sudden. The dishwasher, his quilt, the door to his room, the crib, the rocking chair all get special Joel kisses all day long. He was staying at Jav's parents one day and they had him sitting in the big plastic car in the backyard, and couldn't believe he was already turning the steering wheel from side to side and turning the key in the ignition. Then he'd stop and throw the football back at his Tito. He's already so far ahead of where Gabriel was at his age, I guess because he's got a big brother to catch up with.

He is trying all kinds of new foods daily and my nursing is starting to slow down. We are down to three times a day with one overnight feeding. But then he'll have a tough night where he wakes up three or four times. My hormones are not amused. I think he may finally be working us and just wanting Mommy to be in the room with him until he falls back asleep. During the day it's hard to get him to sit still long enough to nurse. He kicks his feet and squirms around, and wants to see everything going on around us.

Of course, all of this growing up is breaking my heart a little. I'm not ready to say goodbye to his babyhood and hello to toddlerville just yet. I breathe him in every chance I get to smell that sweet baby smell, the one that I wish I could bottle up because I know it's going to go away. And he's such a sweet, sweet guy. He gives HUGE hugs that you can tell he really means. He's starting to lay his head on my shoulder when he's tired. I love it when he wakes up at night and talks to me ( in his own baby language) about what is wrong until I start to feed him.

I think I have magical thinking when it comes to Joel, even now. You would think by now I wouldn't still be in awe that we actually get to have two of these wonders running around. (Well, at least one is close to running!) It's hard to explain, but we expected to have Gabriel. When we found out about Joel, all hope of having another one on our own had been gone for awhile, and we had moved on to other plans. Sometimes I look at him and feel in my heart that he is actual proof that God exists and answers your prayers. That's alot of weight to carry on such small shoulders, and I need to get over it. But watching my two boys playing on the floor, both laughing, I can't help but be humbled by the powers in the universe that have brought my life to this point in such an amazing way.

Addendum: When I read this back it sounded to me like I think Gabriel is just ordinary and not special in any way. So this is just for him, so that later when he reads all of this he will understand a little better what I was trying to say.

Gabriel, when you came into our lives it was like opening the big giant present under the Christmas tree that you'd been looking at for weeks, the one that you hoped was the thing you wanted most in the world, and thought it probably was but you were still just so, so happy to find out that it was. And Joel coming into our lives was like someone pulled out one last package from behind the couch, one that you didn't know about at all, so it was really exciting to open. I hope that clears things up.