Come on. I've gotten to wake up to this dude every day for the last half a year. I am feeling pretty lucky.

In the last six months of Perry, we've discovered:

- His sneaky, demanding sense of humor. If it's not actually funny, he won't laugh. And if you reuse old material too much, forget about it. He can and will heckle you until you cry.

- He is a cuddle bug, through and through. The best feeling in the entire world is slow dancing with his head on your shoulder and his little hand rubbing your back.

- That his favorite way to communicate displeasure is a fake cough that morphs into an indignant, pissed-off yell at the end.

- That he would rather lay in his crib and talk for an hour than actually fall asleep and take a nap. I have hard video monitor evidence.

- That we miss him when he's asleep at night.

- That if you turn on music, he will freeze and get a look on his face much like this.

- That he likes mom's music more than dad's (he drew a line in the sand by choosing his U2 lullaby cd as his favorite).

- That he's easily the best thing ever to happen to us.











We love you kid.

Perry acting cool with his friends at the bus stop.


Growing up, my family had a healthy tradition of family vacations. Come hell or high water, my mom made travel happen, whether it was a camping trip on a shoestring or a family cruise. So I told Jon he could blame her for my constant trip scheming. After enough pestering, Jon made a monumental effort to clear his crazy work schedule and we took our first family vacation to Seattle.

And it was awesome.

We ate like kings. We got unexpectedly upgraded to the top floor of the W. We spent all day long just hanging out, doing fun stuff, taking pictures and talking. Perry was a champ. It was exactly what I needed to sate the travel bug for at least a couple weeks.

We waited to bless this kid until he was four months old so that our out-of-town family could be there. And this four month-old looked like a seven month-old. But he just looks like a total and complete miracle to me. We had to wait a long time for this blessing to become a reality and he honestly is the sweetest happiness that we could have hoped for. All in all, a really special day.