Mourning Yertle Turtle

Since he has been born, Jonah has made a face that we have come to call "Yertle Turtle". After he is done eating, or when he is waking up, he arches his back farther than what seems possible and curls himself into the letter "C". While he is doing this he makes this famous face. With his head tilted back and his eyes closed he purses his lips and raises his eyebrows. (It looks like he is trying to look through his closed eyelids.) Then he puts both of his fists up to the sides of his face, stretches his neck out (like a turtle coming out of his shell...) and wiggles back and forth like a wiggly letter "C". From day one this has been far and away one of my very favorite things that he does. Unfortunately we haven't been able to get any good pictures of it since, as I stated before, it often happens after feeding and any pictures that would be taken might very well be indecent.

All this being said, this is where my mourning begins...Yertle Turtle is quickly fading. A few days ago I told Andrew that we needed to get a picture of it somehow, and soon, because Jonah is doing it less and less. Since then I have hardly seen him do it at all and never to the dramatic level of contortion that he has in the past. Last night as I laid in bed after an early morning feed I realized that it might be gone. I began to tear up as I realized that this is the first thing that I have gotten attached to that Jonah is now outgrowing and I hate it. Andrew and I have been very diligent about trying to enjoy things as they are and soaking up every moment as we are in it. We try to remain lighthearted about Jonah's grumpy temperament and love that we have a little chunky monkey. I cherish the moments that he sleeps on my chest and Andrew eats up Jonah's vocal time with him in the morning. Still, time goes on and as we gain new things that we will love about our boy, we will certainly lose things as well. He will outgrow things. He will do things better and less clumsily. He will one day be too cool for things that he once did. I just thought that all of that was a bit farther away.

As much as I want my boy to grow and be more capable of doing things, I hate that it comes at a cost. Andrew and I have decided that what we really want is a "puppy" boy forever. We want him to somehow stay little, while learning to behave a bit better. I know that there are a lot more things that he will grow out of, and a lot of them will hurt my heart. This one just has an extra sting cause it's the first.