Game Changed

September 12th, age 5 weeks and 5 days, Raleigh became something completely different. He'd been changing anyway; we noticed that he had longer waking periods instead of the newborn sleep-eat-sleep-eat schedule. Along with the longer waking periods, he developed the ability to be bored. He would no longer tolerate lying on his back in one place for long, or even being held chest-to-chest rather than face-out. He preferred to stare at the ceiling fan (oh man how he loves to stare at the ceiling fan) or the kitchen light fixture or computer monitors. He also started making these sudden excited single-syllable vocalizations, like an OH or EH, just out of nowhere while he was looking around. You wouldn't think that would be something to be just super in love with, but it totally is.

But the big thing, the game-changer, was the smile. Raleigh was on his back looking up at me and I was talking to him and making excited faces, seeing if he could react yet...and he smiled. I kept talking, thinking it was probably just another accident, but his smile widened into a mouth-wide-open big gummy grin.

Perfection.

He was noticing me.

"Joe," I said, "Come here! He smiled. Talk to him and make faces at him." And Raleigh did it again.

It's like he graduated. Evolved in a second, like a Pokémon. One minute, he was a warm floppy fragile responsibility on the other end of a really short leash, and the next, he became my very own sweet happy little buddy.

We're a team now. I would be incredibly sad if he died. And if he were to ever get a horrible sickness, I would definitely go through it instead of him, if I could. I just want him to always smile for me.