Growing up is hard to do

I don't know what could be bothering Jonas. He wakes up every night crying. We change his diaper, offer him water, give him tylenol, what usually works to quiet him down is nursing him. He'll sleep for a couple of hours and then he's up again.

I feel so tired every morning that I don't know what to do. I was hoping that as he was getting older, our sleep problems would have receded a little, but that's not happening. Jeremiah and I sometimes guess and assume he is teething, but I don't see any new teeth popping up.

I am relishing every moment I have with my Jonas, because I will soon be working. I feel so bummed about having to leave him for so many hours a day. I keep thinking of all the things I'm going to miss. He's growing so fast and I wish I could be there for every new thing he learns.

I was lucky enough to have most of his first year off. I went to school, but that was only a few days out of the week. Now I'm going to be away 40 hours a week. I think I'm taking it harder than he will. I'm going to miss our days together. I know he'll be fine with my mom, but I can't stop thinking about how much I'll miss spending time with him.

I was putting his pants on him the other day. I looked at his feet, they looked so small and adorable. I was overwhelmed with love. I hugged him tight, as he was attempting to wiggle out of my arms.

This little person I am raising is mine, all mine. He is a sweet little guy, too. He rests his head on my chest, as if he's telling me, "I love you, too, mama."

A year ago, we stared at this little person who couldn't talk and barely moved. Now, he communicates so well. I understand most of what he tells me or points at. Although, there is one thing I can't seem to understand. He's been saying, "dacorn" or "d'accord". One sounds like popcorn and the other is a french word. I don't know, I guess I'll keep trying to figure it out.

A Jonas kind of day

Every morning when Jonas wakes up, he wants to be taken out of the bedroom. He'll reach out his arms to either me or Jeremiah and plead, "please get me out of here, I've been in here too long." While our brains are thinking of only sleep and staying comfortably in bed, we have to force ourselves up and get our little man out of the room.

He has this special routine he does every day.

We'll take him into the living room to watch Sesame Street. He sits on the rug and watches it for a few minutes, then he is off searching through his toy box. He grabs certain toys and looks at them for a split second, "No, that's not the one." He tosses them out, until he finds the one he was looking for. He plays with "the chosen one" until he's bored of it, then on to the next thing on his agenda.

He stands by the fireplace and goes through his books. (I neatly arrange them every night and as soon as I finish Jonas spots them looking so organized, he throws them until it looks like it did before I stacked them.) He'll look at them until one catches his eye. He sits down, turning every page, studying it, ever so carefully. Then he'll sometimes hand it to me, so I could read it to him. I do, but a few minutes go by and he crawls away.

Into the bedroom he goes. He sits in front of the bookshelf and takes out all the bottom row books. Making a huge mess for mommy, daddy or nana Estella to pick up. Then to daddy's dresser, where he takes out all the neatly folded shirts, one by one. He hands each of the shirts to me. I stack them on the bed and wait patiently to put them back.

In the kitchen, he holds onto the water cooler and sticks his finger where the water pours out from. He gets a few drops of water on his tiny index finger and offers it to me. I acccept his offer, of course, who could refuse.

In our bedroom, he takes all of his own clothes out of the drawers, then crawls over to the diaper organizer and hands his diapers to me. I thank him after each one he hands me. Then it is back to the living room to find other interesting things to do.

These are what our days with Jonas are like. They aren't always in that exact order, but that is pretty much what he does around the house.