Best day ever.

We went to Fells Point. We shared a couple of these

at the BOP - and it's NOT just 80s Baltimore nostalgia, it really is the best pizza I've ever had. Ian loved all the activity and the people coming and going. And I thanked them for having high chairs.

We saw several "DAAAAAAAGS!!" including one of these
wearing a red turtleneck.

We walked across the square to the patisserie,

where Ian was greeted like the visiting dignitary who also happened to be a movie star. We shared an almond croissant, and Mommy had a delicious and much-needed cappucino, and we played the world's longest game of 'Got Yer Hat!", the adorableness of which undoubtedly made the other patrons grow a new ovary, or else frow up in their mouths a widdle.

Leaving the bakery, we watched several of these
which was desparately exciting.

Back across the square, chasing these
and admiring some very handsome spaniels. The woman who was walking them seemed fairly uncomfortable to have her (and her dogs) actions narrated.

On the way home, we stopped at the store, and I was a rotten parent and bought him a toy to keep him from crying; one of these

(that's not him, it's some other internet baby who also like purple balls) and when we got home, we kicked it around outside until he was absolutely caked with filth. And so was I. Our side yard has a slight slope, and so I would punt the ball toward the house and it would roll back down, always gently returning to bump against him like the Red Balloon.

9:30ish

baby crying. Quite unusual.

As I got closer, I could hear that it wasn't the freaked-out night terror cry. In fact, parenthetically, it's mostly me that's freaked out by night terrors; it weirds me out the way he can wail his ass off and STILL BE COMPLETELY ASLEEP.

When I got to the top of the stairs, he was standing up in the crib. He stopped crying when he saw me, and looked concerned, pointing over at the closet. "Glabble?" he asked, conversationally, with his perfect diction. When I look confused, he starts to cry again, softly, like he's sad.

I go and close all the closet doors, remembering how, as a little girl, I couldn't fall asleep if my closet was open. I rock him, pat him, give him a little bottle (YES, 15 months old and still having bottles, please shut up) and a dry diaper. I've been eating szechuan string beans; he doesn't recoil from my chili-garlic breath.

I hold him some more; he rests his forehead against mine and falls asleep. For the second time today, he sleeps across my chest, shoulder to hip like a bandolier.

He's so big now, so long and heavy. And strong. And he speaks so clearly - not English, you know, but that'll come. I finally got that 6-week tangle out of his hair, there in the back, where his head rests against the car seat. He's been working that dreadlock like a dirty hippie. I keep putting off his first haircut; I just want to get a few more pictures first. And a few more. And then a few more.

You know.

the fundamentals of comedy writing

PPS ALSO PLEASE DO NOT OFFER MY CHILD STICKERS. HE STILL HAS NOT POOPED OUT THE ONES YOU GAVE HIM LAST WEEK.

Amalah's got it.

He'll sleep when he's dead.

Just like me.

My child is just like me.

Sunday, a friend asked me, "Does even one day go by when no one says 'Wow! He looks EXACTLY like you!'"

well, no, not even one, as a matter of fact. Not since the day he was born.

Actually, he looks a lot like his Daddy, from the bridge is the nose up; his beautiful brown eyes certainly don't come from my side of the family. But nose, mouth, chin, pink chipmunk cheeks and blocky build - thats all me.

As is his taste in food, his jumpy energy...and his attitude about sleep.

Which is to say, like me, he loves sleep - once he gets there. But getting to sleep is a daily problem. Because he knows - KNOWS, for an actual FACT - that there is something interesting going on somewhere. And if he goes to sleep, he'll miss it. He knows for sure, just like I remember knowing at 2 or 3, that everything really good happens at night. I used to lie in my bed, door cracked a fraction of an inch, straining desperately to listen: to the sound of the TV (Glen Campbell, the Burns and Allen TV show, Johnny Carson), quiet conversation, turning pages. I didn't think my parents were having martinis or glamorous parties out there, a room away...but I knew they were up, and I knew it was good time, special time, grown-up time, and I was missing it, and it filled me with longing.

This is a weird admission: my biggest fear, as a child and even a teenager, is that I would die before I was grown up and would never get a chance to DO ANYTHING.

It will be years before my kid has the words to talk about this - and maybe I'm totally projecting - but I swear I see this in him, this longing, at 15 months.