What an amazing thing it is to watch Augie play and learn. He is so concentrated. I am really impressed at his deduction. Our favorite thing is when he whispers to himself as he figures stuff out. "Bah, dah, bah, pha, da..." almost like it is a secret. I wonder all the time, how much of this will he remember? I know snippits of my life before, oh, age 5. I can't recall if I played in our downstairs playroom often or just one or two days. The memories run together. I wonder if he is just processing colors and sounds, or making up names and stories in his head. Can kids at 9 months play pretend? We love to watch him explore, almost to a fault. It's all I can do to keep him from pulling on chords and banging breakables because I want him to be able to feel and taste and learn everything.

I met the mom of a 12 week old last night... and it put how short this time in Augie's life had been into perspective. Will her baby ever nurse well, will she sleep, will she look at me... and as I got a chance to encourage her I looked at my little man crawling and talking to everyone, pushing a little tin bell. How extrodinary it is that God allows us to be parents, to feel an iota of what He gets to feel for us. To watch with delight the massive amount of learning that happens in the first 2 years. To enjoy it so much, since we forget our own learning once we have grown.