Bear's cuteness (why I'm going to end up in the crazy house)

My children make me crazy. Not in the usual sense. I mean actually crazy, in the sense that when I look at them, I can’t cope with how cute they are and my brain starts to implode, and I start babbling and kissing them uncontrollably.

When Bear is excited about something, he goes taut and shakes. Actual vibrations go through his body. It might seem like some kind of medical condition, if it weren’t so clearly a response to exciting things like pages turning in a book or Zuzu talking to him. Or Zuzu jumping around in front of him. Or Zuzu laughing … or Zuzu doing anything. He watches her intently and expectantly, waiting to be entertained. And when she does something funny, he shouts, shrieks, and cackles.

He’s trying out different vocal sounds right now. I love it when he looks surprised by a noise he just made.

He has two teeth that I know of, on the bottom, and still leaves drool puddles everywhere he goes. And the past couple days have been especially rough, teething-wise:

Oh, I know. Impossibly sad.

Right now he’s more focused on examining objects with his eyes and hands than on trying to get around. He can sit for as long as he wants to, but will still always eventually fall over. If he has something in his hands to investigate, he's too absorbed to care.

We went to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair a couple weeks ago with a friend and her kids. We ducked into the horse barn during a downpour. 

 

The story of this picture is this. I was holding Bear in position to strap him into the Baby Bjorn, and paused for a second to look over at something else. When I looked back, this horse head had APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE and was snuffling Bear! I laughed so hard at the shock of it and the quietness of Bear while a large beast kissed him. That’s when my friend took the picture. A couple minutes later while we continued to stand in about the same spot, something horrifying happened. This same horse SNEEZED. And Bear and I both got abundantly sprayed with horse phlegm. I wiped us off with Bear’s blanket, began to think longingly of baths and showers, and stepped away from that horse. I reassured myself that people who work with horses probably get sneezed on and couldn’t care less. (?)

Here he is excited about Daddy:

So there you have it. Cuteness overload.