Thoughts on a life to come

My eyes open to the sound of gleeful screaming. I roll over and look at the clock: 7:50am. Right on time. My wife has been up for a while. She has fed Jackson and put his on clothes on. He roams the house while she gets ready. I hear the clumpidy-clumpidy-clumpidy on the hardwood floor, getting louder and louder as it nears the bedroom. I lean over the side of the bed as the door opens and greet Jackson's ear to ear grin. Good morning!! He races across the room and I hoist him up and squeeze his little body. He laughs from the belly. I just want to eat him up. Then he climbs over my face, stands on the pillow and beats the headboard. The kid never stops moving. We wrestle, which basically consists of me keeping him from flying off the bed and him kneeing me in the stomach and kicking me in the balls. The kid never stops moving.
My wife comes in to take him to daycare on her way to work. We wave "bye-bye Daddy" for a good five minutes until he waves back. He has learned to wave and thus we must wait for him to do so.

It's hard, quite impossible really, to compare your first child to any other. You get the stats from the doctor about their height and weight and head size (Jackson is still in the upper 90% in height and weight). People with baby experience tell you things about your baby in comparison to other babies. And even with the countless articles in the countless Parenting magazines, there is no way to truly compare the growth and development of your first child, because there is no point of reference. I expect every new parent feels the same: their child is the smartest, most perfect, amazing baby in the history of babies. And rightfully so. That said, Jackson is the smartest, most perfect amazing baby in the history of babies. There, I said it.

From the time he was in the womb, we imagined what he would be like. What he would grow up to do. What he would love and where it would take him in life. And even after the first several months of his life, these thoughts were all up to our imagination. Floating around in the ether. We watch him carefully and try to pick up on things that might give us a clue as to what direction his life will take. As of ten and a half months, there are two major areas we can see him exceeding in. Sports and/or music. We suspect he might be good at sports because: he's huge. and strong. He never stops crawling, playing, grabbing, bouncing, banging. He's developing physically ahead of the curve, and has, what we think, a pretty amazing balance. We have taken him to the playland inside the Galleria a couple times, we feel he needs to get out and play and it's just to hot outside, and we can't help compare him to other kids. He's bigger than the kids that are obviously a stage or two older than him. They are easily walking, almost running, we guess they're a good 16-18 months old, and they're smaller than Jackson. The lady who keeps him during the day has been keeping kids for 25 years and told us he could be the strongest baby she's ever seen. We weren't sure, him being our first kid and all, but we suspected before then that he was strong. It takes quite an effort to change him or keep him still if he doesn't want to. And he started walking at 10 months. I don't mean to sound overly boastful, but like I said, Jackson is the smartest, most perfect amazing baby in the history of babies.

He's also learned how to turn up the stereo. Yes, the first few times were on accident. At first, I think he was just attracted to the shiny circle that is the volume control. He played with the shiny circle over the course of several weeks, randomly turning the volume up and down. One day, I watched him carefully play with the stereo and I'm convinced he figured it out. He turned the music up really loud then looked at me like he was going to cry. I turned it down, and he played with it again. Then he turned it all the way down and looked at me like "what happened?" I turned it back up, and he turned it back down. This went on a few times, then he started turning the dial the opposite direction. The music went up and he smiled. It went way up, so I turned it down a little. And he turned it back up. I had a flashback of the ongoing battle between my mother and I over the car radio volume. And how I would covertly turn it up while she looked the other way. Which is exactly what I did with Jackson, except this time I was the parent and turned it down.

The other part of his personality that suggests a musical inclination started the day he was born. We had just arrived in our room after delivery and Jackson started crying. I picked him up and tried to soothe him but he kept crying. I had my laptop open and turned on Bob Dylan. Blonde on Blonde, I think. He stopped crying instantly.
Regardless of the kid, we usually have music playing. But we do try to expose him to as much music as we can. And he really seems to like it. He has been enamored with the little stereo we have in his room from the first moment we turned it on. He darts to it as soon as it starts playing, stands up on the cabinet and starts dancing. I bang on the cabinet in time with the music and he watches with awe. He looks at my hand banging with the beat, then at the stereo, then back at my hand. I see his little wheels turning then he starts banging the cabinet and lets out that glorious little baby yell of his. I showed him his little bongo drum we have in his room and we do the same thing. He bangs on the drum and bounces up and down. My heart skips a beat.

When my aunt Lokken was in town helping my mother recover from back surgery, we took Jackson to their house a few time to spend time with his great auntie. I was working one Saturday and my wife took him over. She took a nap while Jackson and Lokken played. We told her the bongo story and she tried it out for herself. Apparently it's not just us. Lokken was convinced the kid's got rhythm. And then one day when I picked him up from daycare, Miss Jeanette said he spends a lot of time at the toy keyboard, banging on the keys and dancing. My guess is he's putting on a show for all the other kids.

No matter what the kid wants to do, we will support him. We will encourage him to follow his passion, because that is the only true way to be happy in life. And while my imagination may wonder off to Jackson Liane, all star quarterback, or rockstar, or concert pianist (there is no greater passion than that of a concert pianist) If his physical aptitude and musical aptitude come together and he wants to be a dancer, as my wife likes to joke, then so be it. He will be the smartest, most perfect, amazing dancer in the history of dancers.