Bottle That

If I could bottle the feelings, the scent, the sighs and smells of a sleeping baby in my arms, I would be a kaljllion millionaire bajillionaire. The incredible mix of love, peace, fierce protection and wonder is something that I've never experienced except when holding my infant children. It's bittersweet that this might be the last baby I get to experience that rush of emotion with.

Lily is showing us her gummy, toothless smile every day, at every opportunity she gets. She loves to coo and talk to us, the we both make this strange trilling bird noise that we haven't made since Jamisen was a little teensy baby. It must be some strange instinctual thing. She reacts so well to the sound that I don't care that we sound like blind birds in a deep fog trying to find our way out of the cove.

Jamisen has started repeating adult phrases that sound hilarious coming out of a little man's mouth. Stuff like "What's going on here?" and "Oh man!" and other colloquial phrases that adults throw off without a thought.

He takes amazing pride in his independence. Every time he finishes something, he says "I did it!" Sometimes he even raises his arms in the air, in a solitary victory celebration of sorts. He loves to state what he is doing, "I'm running. I'm running."

Perhaps the most fun new trait for Jamisen is his ability to sing songs, to a tune! He knows the ABCs all the way up through G or so and can sing the refrain to most children's songs now. We do 'Ring Around the Rosie' to my perverse delight (since I actually know what the song is about) but we've added a nice second verse about cows in the meadow, eating the grass so now the song is some sort of smash-up of morbid death foreboding and happy methane-emitting beef machines.

We are still having trouble with sharing. It's not just sharing in his own house either. If Jamisen sees someone playing with something at a park and appearing to have fun (a bubble wand was the latest casualty), he will literally walk up and grab it. Just poof, the kid is all bravado and attitude. He has glimmers of sharing prowess where he shares his food with Mommy but so far, people his own size and height... not so successful. I bought the entire selection of sharing books at the store and am hoping that helps.

At work, I'm in a world of excitement and a haze of exhaustion. My Soap Crafting book is here (!!) and we have our big book release party at the end of the month. But no sooner than had it arrived than our COO took off for another week (fishing trip this time), leaving me trying to manage the 2 month old, and the entire company. Normally, this would be a piece of cake but on top of his 4 week trip to Europe when Lily was just 3 weeks old, I'm less excited and more exhausted than if he were here. We did manage to ship all 362 book pre-orders, in addition to our normal orders, on Friday though so that was quite a relief. Mark, in the bottom right, is holding just a fraction of the shipping labels.

Chris's company is busy, busy, busy with ramping up domestic sales as the sales cycle in the Middle East continues to be fraught with any number of issues beyond their control. He's actually cold-calling paper mills, oil processing plants and other companies that would be interested in their services and doing his smooth Chris talk until he gets a decision maker. Already, his hard work is paying dividends and he has two major domestic jobs that should ramp up this year. I'm extremely proud of him and hoping 2014 is the year that it all comes together for his company after a few years of recession-related-doldrums.

On a funny side note, Jamisen only wants Daddy to change his poopy diapers. This is the best turn of events ever and I love it so much. "Daddy change the diaper. Daddy change the diaper." I am so glad that he gets that extra bonding time with Daddy.