April 13, 2000 (Week13)

April 13, 2000

Alex just turned three months old yesterday. Both Julie and I are completely attached to him. His eyesight has changed in the last couple of weeks. He now recognizes both of us from across the room and follows us with his eyes. When we walk into a room and he recognizes either one of us, he gets the biggest smile. It’s one of those smiles that starts in his eyes and spreads across his whole face. When he’s really happy to see us, he makes a little cooing noise. It melts your heart and you think how could life be so wonderful. It’s probably just some protective biological thing, but Alex’s smile affects Julie and me in a way nothing else does. We spend hours trying to get him to smile and each one is new, just like the first one. He's also working really hard on rolling over. He can do this on the bed, but nowhere else yet.

The first three months living with Alex have not always been easy. The transition is much more difficult than I expected. As much as we planned for the changes and envisioned what it would be like after the birth, it has been very difficult at times. It’s not that we had unrealistic expectations or that what we envisioned was wrong. The transition is a fundamental transition. Everything is changed. I think that is hard to plan for, it’s really the experience and living day to day that is different. There have been hard moments when Alex wouldn’t stop crying and neither Julie nor I could figure out why. Was he teething already, or is he hurt, or is he just crying? (Believe me, when he can talk, he has some explaining to do!!) Alex makes things that used to be routine much more difficult. Things like making dinner, reading a book, going to a movie now have to be planned for or we just don’t do them for the moment.

You know, I can also say right along with the hard moments, that in the last three months and almost everyday in the last month, there are times when I’m playing with Alex that I am truly happy - the kind of happiness that comes straight out of your soul. Not like I’m happy because I got a new car or shirt, I’m happy because I’m alive. So in the midst of a fundamental transition where I’m questioning every aspect of my life, I look down at Alex’s face and he looks me right back in the eyes and smiles. We are all very happy.