What you looking at?

Orion's first camping trip

  I am the type of person that can find beauty almost anywhere, from the smallest insect to an amazing landscape. Even within a city like Los Angeles, a fledgling palm tree escaping the confines of a crack in the concrete, holds a certain amount of beauty and promise, in a seemingly toxic wasteland of pollution and population, and the ugliness of human kind. Nothing, however, can compare to the beauty I have found in my baby boys.
  I was unprepared for the wealth of emotion I feel by how amazing and precious these lives are, that I helped create. I find myself awake at night peering through the darkness of the night, illuminated only by a small nightlight in the corner of the room, at my perfect boys. Watching their chests rise and fall and listening to the soft sounds of their breath. Eyelids twitching as they dream.  I study every inch of their faces and watch the subtle expressions change in response to the pictures in their minds eye.

A boy and his dog; Apollo and Remi.

  I see so much of myself in Apollo's personality, not so much how I was as a child but more of how I am today.  I see a lot of Melanie as well, although Apollo is definitely an individual unto himself. I love seeing the contributions that we made, that were apparently preprogrammed, only to manifest themselves at the opportune time. I like to play a game with Apollo called "How did you get so cute?" I have tried to instill the answer into his young mind so his response would be second nature; "Two parts dada, and one part mama", I will tell him, hoping he will repeat it on cue. As Apollo is too smart to play along with this, he will instead say, "I am just Apollo!" The icing on the cake for me was in a recent set up of this question, Apollo decided to play along and responded with, "Two parts dada, one part mama, and all Apollo."
  My favorite Apollo saying this month as he was trying to console his crying baby brother while we were driving down the road; "Oh my gosh baby brother! Don't do the shaky lip! It makes dada really sad!"

Hanging off my mom...life is good

  Ah yes...baby brother. At seven weeks old, Orion is packing on some size. He is a healthy eater, and an easy baby. He is sleeping between 4 and 6 hours at night (for) now. His awake time has lengthened, along with the amount of time he can stand being separated from his mom, and he may actually smile at you  if the mood strikes him.
 Its about the time a baby starts smiling that you notice they can see things that we can not. I am talking about how they will smile and interact with someone in the corner of the room that is not there. Its kind of creepy when your infant looks over your shoulder and starts smiling and giggling. You can move your head to block their line of sight or turn them away from where they are looking, and they will twist and turn to gaze back where they were before. I have looked over my shoulder more than a few times expecting to see someone there. Its something you have to experience to believe, and maybe I am reading more into something than I need to be, but if you have seen an infant do this, you know how bizarre it is.
 I first recognized this phenomenon with Apollo, but I had forgotten about it until Orion started to do the same thing. It seems to be an intermittent behavior that disappears around four or five months. If only they could speak at this age, I would ask, "what you looking at?"...Alas, this question would be futile. Instead I opt to borrow one of Apollo's phrases; "You're creeping me out!"