These are a few of our favorite things

• When after fighting sleep by crying for a while, he gives a sigh of defeat and we know that he's on his way to sleeping.
• The way he grips your finger as if to say "don't ever let go".
• When it's 2 or 3 in the morning and you're completely exhausted and he looks at you and smiles.
• He just discovered that he enjoys his fingers in his mouth. He'll be fussy for you, but you can put him down and he'll calm himself down just by sucking his thumb. (and other fingers)

• When he's happy, he smiles and throws his arms down almost saying "hands down you're the best."
• He will look left and right, back and forth almost compulsively for minutes on end. It's almost as if he sees 2 things, one on each side, that he wants to look at and doesn't want to miss the other thing while he's looking at the one.
• While sleeping in a beanie the above mentioned behavior results in the beanie coming down over his eyes all the way down to his nose, and sometimes he sleeps that way.
• He will mainly sleep in the following position: flat on his back, legs bent, arms back behind him flat. Almost like the police have said "freeze" and that's the way he decided to sleep.
• He has recently developed some dance steps, while standing he has trouble balancing and keeping his legs straight all the time, so goes up and down and all around in his own way.
• He may have the cutest little pouty face in all the land. If he uses that when he's 3 and asks to have something, it's going to be very tough to say no.
• He loves the outdoors, whenever we take him out for a walk he just calms down and takes it all in.
• His eyes get so big when he's excited and it usually followed by THE cutest smile ever. If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing this smile, you are missing out!! Sorry there isn't a picture, we haven't been able to capture a full smile just yet because we are too busy enjoying every second of them.
• He has taken to sticking out his tongue so much so that he is now known as "Mommy's Little Lizard"

2 Months Already!

Joel had his 2 month Doctor's appointment where they measured and weighed him and the doctor is quite pleased with his progress.

Since his first cry we have heard many different unhappy noises from him and are getting quite good at determining what each of them mean. But after he got 3 more immunization shots at his Doctor's appointment we got to hear a new one. This one is similar to the "not happy where I'm at" cry but mixed with "just hold me" and what we're calling "I hurt and I don't know why." As if all of his cries aren't heartbreaking enough this one cuts right to our core. It is sad to watch our precious child so unhappy when we can't explain to him that why he is upset is to try and ensure his health in the future. The good thing is that the pain is temporary.

He has been smiling for a couple of weeks now and can hold his head up on his own for a few minutes at a time. He is starting to "talk" using "Ooooh's" and "Ugglah's" it is very cute. He just rolled onto his side last night, so we've got to keep an extra special watch on him now. His eyes focus on things all over the place so it's fun to have staring contests.

Two months into this side of the journey of parenthood and it is tremendously rewarding. We both have felt a sense of the profound meaning of our lives. Our monetary jobs cannot compete with the joy found in the job of raising our child.

Here are some pictures: