Love is...

…when, at the crack of dawn, you finish breastfeeding your infant son for the third time that morning, as Jen did yesterday, and you plop him down on his little bed-within-a-bed next to the sleeping form of your partner, and as if to announce that he’s not going back to sleep anytime soon, said infant immediately lunges for your sleeping partner’s hair, the little brat, and so, utterly selfless and quick-thinking, you thrust the mane of the big shaggy lion plush toy in his little grabby hands to distract him for a moment while you don fuzzy slippers, heave yourself wearily to your feet, pluck the boy from bed, set him down on his playmat in the next room, put the kettle on and prop your eyes unsteadily open with the Times Online crossword puzzle.

Just when we thought we'd be settling into more routine bedtimes, with fewer nighttime interruptions, Oscar actually seems to be waking up more in the wee hours and crying until he's fed. It's probably for comfort more than hunger, but either way, we sometimes wonder if we aren't getting less sleep than we did in the early months. All the more impetus to move him to a crib. Last night, Jen resisted his entreaties, and he'd wail for awhile, then drop off to sleep again. I'm not sure it'd be any different were he a few feet away in a bed of his own, but it's clearly time we started getting him in the habit of sleeping alone and falling back asleep without the boob.

We had our first "PTA meeting" at the daycare this week, which pretty much consisted of the directors admonishing us not to forget to bring diapers, changes of clothes, etc. Jen arrived a little late and engorged, since she hadn't pumped that day, so she grabbed Oscar on her way into the meeting. There was a 10-month-old there who had just discovered her bellybutton and was literally navel-gazing. Between pulls on the boob, Oscar began flirting with her -- shrieking and babbling at her -- and one of the directors remarked on how sociable Oscar is, and then all the parents chimed in about how remarkably happy he is. As we were leaving, the other Oscar's dad said: "Goodbye, Happiest Little Boy in the World." So it's not just us, and I'm not being that selective with all the photos of him smiling -- he really is an unusually sunny creature.