Every day, something new.

Ever since we entered the new year of 2013, every day now—or so it seems—there’s something new.

Last week, it was the new set of teeth that we didn’t even notice coming in. (You now have eight[!].)

Three days ago, you casually began blowing spit bubbles. You kept at it for quite a while, one after the other. You seemed to like their shiny feel and bright pop.

Two days ago, you started … well, there’s no polite way to say it, really, but humping while held in arms. It is a very deliberate roll and thrust of your hips. I want to start calling you “Tiny Elvis.”

And yesterday, it was the quintessential “ga-ga-ga.” Somewhere along the stretch between yesterday and today—while traversing the terrain of your dreams, perhaps?—you found an entirely new consonant sound, and it has been bursting joyfully from your mouth ever since, as if you needed to meditate no further, as if I were wrong, in fact, in thinking that yesterday was the first day for this sound, as if you’d been born saying it, had been practicing it for the last nine months, no big deal, ma.

Today, it was the long count of five that you stood unassisted while contemplating the two blocks—orange, yellow—held in your hands. Those five counts lasted so long, they might as well have been minutes. I didn’t breathe; you didn’t seem to notice your spontaneous grace and sense of balance. And then it was over, and you sat with a hard, quick thump.

Life with you is a dream, joy boy. And I am trying to be present for each moment but also archive the moments, like snapshots tucked haphazard into a keepsake box to be organized in my free time. You know, once you’re in college.