little victories

Today after I finished my breakfast I decided to put K on his tummy while I read my scriptures beside him. Immediately after I set him down, he lifted his head up really high, turned sideways, and then rested his head on his arm. He then started wiggling his legs and body a little bit, as if he wanted to roll the rest of the way. I thought, "Wow, he's so close! I wonder how much longer it will be before he can roll over." He rested for a little while on his arm, and then he rolled the rest of the way as if it was no big deal. It took me a second to realize he had just rolled over because he did it so easily. Then I got really excited. I wonder if he'll keep doing it.

This is one of the things I am really enjoying about motherhood. I get to see all these small yet significant victories that K makes and enjoy them with him. I love to see the determined look he gets on his face when he's going to try to do something, and then the smiles and excitement he has when he does it. I know that he must have been looking forward to the chance to have a body for a long time before he was born, and it's fun to see him trying to figure out how this whole using-a-body thing works. I am amazed at the developments he has made and the way he has figured out how to do certain things on purpose.

One thing I have noticed about him is that when he decides to do something, he will do it--if he doesn't want to, he won't. If the pacifier isn't what he wants, there's no way we can get him to take it--but if he wants it, he will take it for a long time without any coaxing. For the first month of his life, he refused to sleep on his back in the bassinet at night, no matter what we tried. Then one night I put him in there, and he wasn't even close to being asleep, and he slept--and I've never had a problem since (at night). One day he decided he was going to sleep through the night, and he has done it almost every night since then (thank you, thank you, thank you, K!). And the same thing happened today--I think he thought, "I'm going to roll over," and then he just did it. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone besides me--it's kind of hard to explain what I mean in writing, especially since other people don't know him as well as I do.

Two minutes after K's superhuman performance, he was exhausted and quickly fell asleep. He looked so sweet that I just had to get a picture.