September 28th, 2004

Reborn.

I’ve heard it mentioned from several fathers, that having a child changes one’s perspective on life. I find it hard to disagree. Landon’s birth has had a strong effect on me, but rather than giving me a different perspective, it has given me his perspective. It is very surreal to watch the world develop through Landon’s eyes. Recently I have been awed by his lack of understanding of pain. If Landon bumps his head or smashes a finger a look of utter disbelief washes across his face. He is completely under prepared and inexperienced with pain. Tears quickly ensue, but for a brief moment you can watch him trying to comprehend what the heck is happening to his pounding cranium. And before the tears can dry, he plods forward bumping his head into the next sharp, pointy object in his path. I must admit to a slight bit of jealousy. His courage is tremendous. His bravery may be blind now, but nonetheless he crawls across the floor, unencumbered by fear. Meanwhile my personal trepidation about his safety, and about my own continued well being so that I can continue as a father for him, has increased several fold. So as I watch my son crawl like a lion, I have begun to tiptoe through life like a lamb. This isn’t the change of perspective I had anticipated, hopefully I can learn a little blind courage from my son, and hopefully he can learn a little caution from his dad.

September 19th, 2004

Ugh. So much has happened with little Landon, and so little of it has been recorded here in the last few weeks. Here is an unfortunately short recap of the last few weeks.

Landon has attained forward mobility. Although he has yet to develop grace, he can get from point A to point B at a steady pace that is increasing in velocity with practice. That being said, Landon has yet to actually crawl in the traditional definition of the verb. His crawling style involves a steady push up to his hands and knees followed by a strong kick forward with his knees and feet causing his elbows to buckle and his entire body to lurch forward in a body slam/slide. This results in a net gain of close to 6 inches of forward progress. A quick push up begins the process over again. A number of these forward lurches strung together resemble an inch worm like progression across the floor, and as I mentioned, the more he practices, the quicker his inch worm technique becomes. It is rapidly becoming time to baby proof our cave.

The first tiny, jagged chomper has pushed through Landon’s lower gums. We felt the tooth before its arrival, but as of today you can actually view the little white island, standing tall in a see of pink. The rest of his front four teeth hopefully aren’t far behind, he still appears to be in quite a bit of discomfort from the whole process.

Landon may or may not have said his first word, depending on who you look to for confirmation. Each week it seems, Landon develops the ability to make a new sound, and then proceeds to babble that sound in his adorable little baby voice while he gains mastery of the new vocalization. This past week has been no different; the “da” phonic has been reverberating from Landon all week. This quickly evolved into long strings of, “da-da-da-da-da…” This afternoon as I got Landon ready for his bath he looked up at me and very clearly and concisely said, “Da-Da” which sounded a whole lot like Daddy to me and considering the eye contact and direction of his utterance, I am going to pronounce that Landon’s first word will have been recorded as such. That being said I should also mention that Rhiannon counters this argument by noting that Landon has also had similar conversations with the dog. I have tried to explain to her the subtle differences between daddy and doggy, but as of yet she is still standing by the possibility all of this could be nothing more than babbling baby nonsense.

Landon has also begun to develop some independence/attitude. Whether he is voicing his opinion on something, shoving away a spoonful of food or a bottle, or trying to crawl over a shoulder to grab some shiny keys, his determination has increased several fold. He has left behind the passive days of infancy behind, and is quickly developing into a little person with his own little identity and opinions. Look out world, a new Buhr ‘tude is developing.