Firsts

I am trying to reconcile with the fact that time is passing. Everyday Ellis disappears and appears in front of my eyes...Perpetual change. This is why mothers make baby books, photo albums, are the photographers in the family... Trying to make these moments stand still.

Things Ellis just started to do:
-When we are playing "block/toy/bowl on the head" he puts the item on his own head himself.
-He can bend down from a standing position to pick up toys he has dropped.
-He makes and opens and closes a fist over and over in the direction of something that he wants
-He can make it any given outlet in about five seconds
-He throws his weight/ body in the direction he wants to go
-He holds unto my fingers and walks around the apartment, leading me from room to room
-Stand for a second on his own...though he often doesn't notice he's doing it


New things that made Ellis laugh in the last weeks:
-When you blow into a beer bottle it makes a low noise
-My eyebrows going up and down when I am nursing
-Tickling his toes when he is in the highchair
-Throwing a kleenex up and having it float down to the ground

Things he experienced for the first time in the last weeks:
The Mississippi River
bubbles
bagels
a kazoo
pineapple
going down a slide
"petting" a chicken
a mouthful of dirt
Easter

And then this week, the tip of his first tooth appeared....
And so we did the math. And so I met with my boss, and asked if I could work four days a week instead of five. Its a risk with both of our jobs unstable...We should save...We should play it safe...We should buy a house.
Or we can have more time together this summer. Or I can be there for a few more of Ellis' firsts.
And so I take a sharpie and write one of the things my mother used to say in big letters, and put it on our refrigerator:
"We're rich, and someday we may have money too."