{sunshine}

We picked up the babe's helmet today. I could write about how I had to fight tears the whole time he was being fitted, but I'm just not up for it today. I need to write about some good things, some happy things, so this is strictly a celebration of the current parts of life I want to bottle up forever.

Avram is teething, and it is just the absolute worst. He is drooling like a mastiff, and he has this pathetic little cough that I'm convinced is only 50% real and 50% him amusing himself with his new sound effects. He always has to have something in his mouth: a rattle, his thumb, a spoon, a sock. When I hold him facing away from me, he gums my arm from wrist to elbow: slowly, meticulously, as if he is sucking every last kernel from the most delicious corn-on-the-cob.  We have so many hickeys between the two of us that we look like a couple of hormone-crazed adolescents.

Ave and I have a new game. I will smother his cheeks in kisses (sometimes he turns in at the last second so I get him right on the kisser, and his dad yells, "Hey! That's my move, young man."), and then I put my cheek right next to his mouth. He face-plants right on to my cheek, mouth open, leaving my face soaked. He then throws his head back and giggles, as if he just got away with something sneaky.

When he wakes up in the morning, I can hear him talking to himself in his crib. He has mastered his "b"s this week, and he is quite pleased with himself. When I go in to get him up, he just lies there smiling up at me, beaming like morning sunshine.