Personality Overload

Patrick woke up this morning on personality overload. It's like he carefully deliberated every move he made to make sure it was oozing with cuteness. He was very insistent with feeding himself his lunch, making a mess everywhere; I was cleaning chicken noodle from his nose and eyelids even. I thought he was going to fall out of his chair he was so excited when I brought his water bottle over. He looked right up at me at one point and said something cute in his baby language, and he was downright delighted when I repeated it back to him. I wonder what I inadvertently said to him. I've never seen Patrick in such a good mood. I hope he stays this way for a while.

I was between books last night, having already read my two freebies I got early in the week (expect the second review before much longer), so I decided to reread one of my favorite series. I haven't read these books in years and already suspected before I started reading that I would see them differently now. Different things would hit me that hadn't hit me before. I remembered a lot to do with true love and mothering in them, and now that I have experienced true love and motherhood, I see those things differently. I ended up sobbing through nearly the whole book (yes, I'm embarrassed to admit I read the whole first book last night before going to bed). It was good crying, though. I was able to cry tears of joy along with the main character as well as tears of sadness because I was able to identify with the emotions she was feeling so much better now that I've felt them myself. The characters' experiences and emotions are so much more real to me now that I don't have to imagine how they might feel in each instance; I've experienced those same emotions or something remarkably close for each experience. I'm anxious to reread most of my collection of books now to see them from this new perspective.

I love the new pictures of Patrick I got yesterday. I'd forgotten he had this pair of overalls. He hadn't worn them yet because I never could figure out which shirt was supposed to go with them. I finally decided it didn't really matter and paired it with this plaid shirt:

Meet Farmer Patrick. Too bad I didn't have a straw hat for him.
Meet Farmer Patrick doing his best imitation of a frog. (This is his new thing, leaning forward on everything, trying to support himself.)
Meet Farmer Patrick indulging his sensitive side. It looks like he's working on his tryouts to be a concert pianist...or maybe a composer. Or maybe Linus (I think that's his name) from Charlie Brown, playing piano with one hand and clutching a blankie with the other.

Update: Patrick cut his fourth tooth during his afternoon nap. Now he has both his middle top and bottom teeth.

And do they make child-proof diapers? No, really. Do they make diapers that nine-month-olds can't unfasten when they're supposed to be napping? I'm awfully glad he can't crawl yet; he's full of mischief today!