Yesterday, Juliette and I walked five miles in the rain with some friends (and 2,108 strangers) in order to help find a cure for literacy. I placed fourth to last in the "Male 30-34" bracket (just barely beating out a blind woman, a woman nine months into her pregnancy, and an 89-year-old man), picked up two new blisters, and had the skin worn off the back of my left ankle by a shoe that is sorely in need of replacement. And a fun time was had by all.

All kidding aside, we had a great time. It was, indeed, raining, but it felt good to participate in something for a good cause. We opted to walk instead of run, which meant that we got wetter and colder than we might have otherwise, but it also meant that it wasn't particularly strenuous, and we spent the time talking and laughing, which is a pretty good way to spend a Sunday morning, if you ask me.

Between the event and the weather, Jason had to stay in the stroller the entire time, and all things considered he stayed in a pretty good mood the whole time. Maybe he found the prospect of walking on the freeway as exciting as the rest of us did, I don't know. But for the most part he seemed pretty content, though he did keep trying to find ways to stick his feet out from under the big umbrella that we propped up in between him and his friend Amalea (our race partners' daughter). For her part, Amalea wisely chose to spend most of the race asleep.

Two years ago if you'd asked me if I would ever participate in an event like this I'd have looked at you like you were out of your mind. At breakfast after the race yesterday, though, I was talking about training for a marathon or a century bike race. Most likely I won't be doing either any time soon, since the training requires a bit too much of a regular time commitment for me at the moment. Still, old me would likely be smacking new me upside the head.

Anyway, I'd just like to say thanks to our friends James and Melanie for getting us to come along and walk with them (and to congratulate Mel for doing this just five months after having had a fibrosarcoma removed from her thigh). Also thanks to Emily and Ari for the loan of their stroller. Right on!

For several months now, Jason has been pretty into Sesame Street. At first he only had eyes for Elmo, constantly talking about him and asking to see the same clips over and over again. But about two weeks ago his focus suddenly changed. More and more, he's been asking for Ernie. And Bert, actually, although it's only been a few days since he figured out that both characters aren't named "Ernie."

When I was a kid, I loved Ernie. He was one of my favorite characters. (The other was Grover, in part because my dad was really good at imitating his voice.) I still remember how hard I laughed at Ernie yelling "HEEEEERE FISHYFISHYFISHYFISHY!" Ernie was great--he was fun-loving and funny, and certainly more entertaining than his stick-in-the-mud pal Bert. Now, though, Ernie is, well... I kind of think he's a jerk.

I mean, seriously, here's a guy who makes a habit out of waking his best friend up in the middle of the night and then immediately going to sleep, so that not only does his friend not get a restful night, but he has to be alone through it, too. How upset would you be if your best friend woke you up at 2 AM in order to practice how he was going to wake you up in the morning? I'd be livid. And yet, every time Ernie decides to have a midnight jam session with his bugle, Bert just turns to the camera and sighs.

True, Bert can be kind of a grump sometimes. But wouldn't you be kind of grumpy if every time you sat down to read a good book, somebody came and not only interrupted you but invited a bunch of wild animals into your living room and then left them there for you to deal with? All things considered, Bert seems like a model of restraint.

So, I've reached a point in my life where Ernie is annoying and Bert is something of a tragic figure. And this is how I know I've gotten old.

Jason has been a little sick for the last couple of days, so we've kept him home from day care. I was home with him today, and I thought it would be fun for him to get out of the house, so we went for a little walk at Lake Miramar again.

I'm trying to teach myself how to use photo editing software.  Can you tell?  I'll try to find some new locations, so that it's not just all pictures of Lake Miramar.

This is the conversation Jason and I had Monday evening on the drive home from day care:

Me: Did you have a good day, buddy?

Jason: No.

Me: Yes you did.

Jason: (pause) Dada.

Me: What's up?

Jason: Dada.

Me: I'm right here, buddy.

Jason: Dada.

Me: That's right, I'm Dada.

Jason: Mommy.

Me: Mommy's at home.

Jason: Dada.

Me: Do you know where we're going, Jason?

Jason: (pause) Um.

Me: That's right, we're going home.

Jason: Mommy.

Me: Yeah, Mommy's at home. Where's Mommy?

Jason: (pause) Wuck.

Me: No, she's not at work, Mommy's at home.

Jason: Um.

Me: Right, home.

Jason: Wuck.

Me: No, home.

Jason: Dada. Mommy mommy mommy. Dada. Dock.

Me: The dog's right here.

Jason: Ga.

Me: Right, we're in the car.

Jason: Wawa?

Me: I don't have any water. Maybe when we get home.

Jason: Dada! Dada Dada Dada. Mommy. Um. Wawa. Dock.

Me: OK, buddy.

Jason: Yay! (claps as the song on the radio ends)

Me: Yay!

Jason has never been much of a morning person. He comes by it honestly, of course--I can be a bit of a bear for the first few minutes after getting up, as well. Anyway, it was no big surprise this morning that he threw a little fit when I put him in his booster seat. Based on past experience, I might have expected a tantrum due to having served him the wrong food, or his mother leaving the room, or just being too tired. Were any of those the reason this morning? Nope. This morning he was angry because I wouldn't let him bring a book to the table.

(Here I'd just like to pause a moment and reflect on how difficult it is to write efficiently when the Olympics are on. The last paragraph took me half an hour to compose.)

Now, parenting has brought me a number of unexpected experiences. I find myself saying and doing things all the time that I never thought I would. But I honestly never thought I'd have a problem with my son reading too much. I mean, you want your kid to be a good reader, right? But lately it seems like all Jason wants to do is read constantly.

Of course, by "read" I don't really mean that he can understand the words. But he loves to sit and turn the pages and examine the pictures, shouting out the names of everything on the page. He's even started to memorize some of the ones that we've read to him. In any case, that's what he wants to be doing all the time. Well, that and watch Sesame Street.

And that's fine. I mean, it's great. I love that he loves books. The problem is that it's getting in the way of other, necessary activities. Like eating. Jason has never been the best eater, and now when he's distracted by a book it can be quite an ordeal to get him to pay attention to his meal. Not to mention that Jason's hands get absolutely filthy when he eats, and he has no aversion to smearing food on anything he can get his fingers on. The table, for example, or his hair, or, of course, books.

We've been consistent about not letting him bring his books to the table, so it's just a matter of time until he gets used to it. In the mean time, I expect this will get on my nerves. All things considered, though, this is a pretty good problem to have.

Before Jason was born, when Juliette was pregnant, I would try to imagine him at different stages of his life--as a newborn, a toddler, a teen. Actually, I still do that a lot. Anyway, when I'd think of him at the age he is now, I'd usually include some kind of security item in the picture. Maybe he'd be clutching a blanket as he followed me down the hall after a nap, or dragging a stuffed animal all around the house as we played in the afternoon. Now, I knew that different kids form attachments with different items, but in all my imagining I never stumbled upon what he actually loves to carry with him everywhere: his water cup.

Oddly, it's not a particular cup that he's attached to. We probably have eight or ten sippy cups and any of them will do. And he doesn't have to actually have it in his hands at all times--often while he's playing he'll leave it on the floor in one room while he runs around in circles in another room. But he always has to have access to one of those cups. If I pick up a half-full cup from the living room floor and put it up on the kitchen counter, as soon as he notices, Jason will stand under it, pointing at it and asking for it until he gets it. And if I don't get it to him fast enough, he'll start whining or sometimes even full-out crying. For at least a month now he's even been taking a cup to bed with him.

Actually, these days his crib is getting a little crowded. We always left a couple of small stuffed animals in there with him, even though he never showed much interest in them. And, of course, he's had blankets since he learned to flip himself over, even though he still hasn't really learned how to sleep underneath them. And there's the cup. In the past few weeks he's started taking books to bed with him as well. It started out as just one book, whichever one we read to him before bed. Now there are a few books that just stay in bed all the time. As I'm writing this (he's been asleep now for a couple of hours) he has with him 3 blankets, 4 stuffed animals, 5 books, and his water cup, the latter of which is clutched in his arms.

It's funny, I remember taking books to bed when I was younger and reading until I fell asleep, and I figured that Jason might do the same. I just thought it would start a little later. But tonight after we put him down, as we were making dinner, Juliette and I could hear him happily squealing and shouting "quack quack!" (actually more like "cuck cuck") as he flipped through the book with ducks in it.

Come to think of it, ducks are his favorite animal now. I bet if we got him a duck toy he might switch over to that. Still, it's pretty adorable to see him asleep cradling his cup or snuggling up to a book.

I keep a little list in my phone's notepad of things I'm going to write about. Every time Jason does something I find interesting or amusing, or on the rare occasions that I have a thought of my own, I jot it down in that list. Over the past six weeks, the list has been steadily growing. So, in an effort to get a little caught up, I thought I'd condense things a bit and just give you the short versions of a bunch of those list items all at once. Thus, some facts about Jason:

• Jason answers just about every question with "no." "Do you want a snack, buddy?" "No" (as he reaches for the crackers on the counter). "Did you have a good day today?" "No." "Do you like the dog?" "No." "Am I asking you a question?" "No."
  
• Jason seldom walks. If he needs to get somewhere, he runs. In that respect, he's a bit like a young Forrest Gump. In pretty much only that respect. In any case, it's very cute.
• Jason is a mammal.
• Jason cheats when he plays with his jack-in-the-box. Rather than waiting for it to pop on its own, he just pulls the clasp open with his finger. He used to give the crank a token turn or two, but these days he doesn't even bother with that.
• Jason always has a runny nose.
• On the other hand, Jason hasn't had an ear infection in a couple of months. (Here Juliette will want me to knock on wood. I did.)
• In the past month or so Jason has started "reading" on his own. Rather than sitting on our laps while we read to him, he likes to flip through a book on his own and shout out what's on each page. He even has a favorite place to read: in the living room on top of the wicker toy box we bought him last month. He does skip pages here and there, but on the other hand he's also figured out how to hold books the right way up.
• Jason still needs more practice eating with utensils, but he's getting better.
• Lately Jason has started crying when I drop him off at daycare. As soon as it looks like I'm going to leave, he starts jumping up and down and grabbing my legs. It's difficult for me. Still, his teachers report him having a good day most of the time, and besides that he also gets upset when it's time to go home.
• Jason will offer you hugs, but will sometimes use the opportunity to bite you on the shoulder.
• Jason loves to blow bubbles in his bath water, but he still hasn't quite figured out how to time his breathing so bath time inevitably involves some coughing and spluttering.

It's funny how quickly things change with kids, and how fast these little moments pile up. I keep wondering what he's going to do next. Fortunately, I get to find out.

I'm finding that one of the coolest parts of being a parent is getting to watch my son figure things out for the first time. Everybody always talks about "the wonder of a child" and seeing that "aha" moment, but it's easy to lose the significance when you repeat phrases like that over and over again. The thing is, everything really is new to a young child, and when you stop and thing about it, it's kind of a marvel that anyone ever figures out anything.

Earlier this evening I was watching Jason play with a piece of string. He had the string doubled over and was holding it in one hand so that it formed a little loop. Now, Jason has seen loops of string before and what he usually likes to do is stick a finger or arm through it. But what confounded him this time was that as soon as he got his arm through the loop and let go with the other hand, the loop was gone and he was just left with a piece of string draped over his wrist. He did this probably three or four times, each time surprised that the loop changed and a little confused and frustrated about what happened to it.

Now, I imagine that this little scene may seem a little banal--after all, it doesn't seem such a big feat to grown-up eyes to figure out that if you let go of the ends of an untied loop of string, you don't have a loop anymore. But if you stop and think about it, it's kind of amazing that that sort of thing is such second nature to us. And seeing someone come to that realization for the first time is just fascinating.

Actually, tonight turned out to be a bumper night in terms of figuring things out, because Jason also figured out how to get out of his crib tonight. Juliette and I were just starting to eat our dinner, having put Jason down about 15 minutes earlier, when we heard him start to fuss. These days that's a little unusual, so Juliette went to check on him, expecting to find that he'd thrown his blankets and stuffed animals over the side of his crib. In fact, she did find that, but she also found him standing on the little pile next to the crib. Fortunately, the crib can still be lowered one more notch, which I'll do tomorrow. For tonight, we set up the portable playpen in his room and put him in there--so far, he hasn't been able to get out of that.

It definitely keeps you on your toes, this parenting thing.

Jason started figuring out how to dance a while ago. Until recently he really only had one move: bouncing up and down. That's probably because that's mainly what Juliette and I do when we're showing him how to do it--bounce at the knees in time to the rhythm, sometimes adding in shoulders or arms. It's very cute when he bops along, especially since he invents his own highly syncopated beat.

In the last couple of weeks he's shown us that his repertoire is expanding:

(Just in case anyone is curious, that thing on his belly is a band-aid that he had been playing with.)

Yesterday after picking up Jason, Juliette decided to stop in at Babies 'R Us to pick up a few things. When she got there, she realized that we still had some money left on a gift card that we'd gotten for Jason's birthday. "Jason picked out a couple of things he wanted," she told me, recounting the story to me when I got home.

Now, I wasn't sure quite what to make of that statement at first, since, after all, Jason can hardly talk and while he certainly does have desires and ways of making them known, he's never actually picked anything out for himself. But it turns out it really was true, as Juliette explained to me. When they were walking through the aisles looking at the toys and books, Jason actually looked things over and saw some things that caught his fancy: a two-pack of spiky rubber balls (one large, about 7 or 8 inches in diameter, the other small, about 3 inches), and a book that had Elmo on the cover.

The rest of the way through the store, he clutched his new prizes to his chest, both at the same time. When they got out to the car and Juliette opened the package of balls, he took both of them and the book and tried to hold onto all three all the way home. He could hardly get his arms around all of it, but he was clearly delighted. Then when he got home, he marched all over the living room and kitchen with his arms full, proclaiming "Ball, ball. Ball, ball." Occasionally he'd drop one and have to stop to pick it up, no mean feat for someone whose wingspan is only about two feet. It was apparently very cute, and I'm sorry to have missed it. Fortunately, Juliette did turn the camera on while she and Jason read the new book, so I got to see that. And so do you: