What goes around comes around ...

Our son with his sons, Jason Cody (4) and John Phillip (7 months).



I'm thinking of our older son tonight and chuckling about our last phone chat.  We were discussing his younger son's new efforts to crawl -- hitch up on hands and knees, move one knee forward, etc. and try to get where he's going.  But he hasn't quite got the hang of it yet.

Big brother Jason Cody is a good helper and  keeps an eye on little John-Phillip when he's up and around.  Just like our daughter did with her baby brother thirty years ago.

So I did a bit of reminiscing ...

 ... and told Jason about his escapades as a child.  Especially the part about not sleeping more than two or three hours straight for the first 15 months of his life!  Seriously.  But, I told him, "you were pleasant when you woke up, and when you called out in that sweet little voice, "Aaaah?," I jumped out of bed to go to him.  I certainly didn't want his babbling to wake his older sister... or his Dad, who had to get up and go to work early.

Many nights I pulled out a box of toys for Jason to play with while I rested on the couch beside him.  We were content there, just he and me (or is it he and I?) in the quiet of the night.  Nobody disturbed his 45 minutes or so of one-on-one time with Mom, and he was a pleasant baby.  Maybe someone reading this right now is thinking, "You shouldn't have rewarded him with play time - you should have put him back to bed."
  
That's easy to say and much harder to accomplish.

If I had put him back to bed in the tiny room he shared with Melissa, I would soon have *two* children awake and in the living room -- a midnight play date, so to speak.  And now, it turns out, my son has a son just like him.  ;-)  And we love our grandson dearly!

John-Phillip is a cheerful little tyke with a smile that goes straight to your heart. He reminds me a lot of his Daddy at that age -- busy, bright-eyed and a bundle of energy.  How could anyone resist spending time with this baby, no matter the hour of day or night? 

Before we hung up, Jason shared that his wife had a dream about John-Phillip walking into their room one night. "I told her that I think the crawl stage is to fake us out and he's already exploring the house while we sleep." 

Ahhh. what goes around comes around, son.  Your son is carrying on your "night owl" habits!