Joaquin: Baby Spokesperson

We seem to be in the middle of our friends as far as life development goes. We have friends who are slightly older than us who are much better established than us...better houses, greater income, more than one child, etc...and we have friends who are slightly younger than us who are just buying, just getting married, thinking about children, etc... Two observations about these groups:

Among the younger group, I often get the women of this group looking at Joaquin with fear. They ask questions and it is clear that they're scared of having a baby and going into this next part of their life. We were at a party the other night and that seemed to be the case, but Gideon and I have nothing but positive things to say about having a baby. "How is it?" she asked, and we said "It's fun" as she kind of regarded me skeptically. I told her husband later that we are great, walking advertisements for having a baby and that Joaquin was a great baby spokesperson. My pregnancy wasn't particularly difficult, neither was labor and delivery and neither is having him at home. Which brings me to my second observation...

Both groups, but especially the older group, likes to steal our sunshine on this. During pregnancy, when I said it wasn't particularly difficult, they said "Just wait, people that have easy pregnancies have awful deliveries." Then I had an easy delivery and people said something to the effect of 'your child will be the devil.' Now Joaquin is easy to be around and everyone says, "Oh just wait til your second one, you'll be in for it then!" What's up with that? We keep coming back to the idea that a baby might be more easy going if you are more easy going...self fulfilling prophesies anyone?

Anyway, here are a few photos of our beautiful, easy going 20 week old (20 weeks!). He is now reaching for things and people (mostly his mama when he is tired) and really likes stuffed animals. By the way, he was beyond perfect at the party and everyone remarked at what a great baby he was as we left : )