The Pace of Progress

Sarah and I were talking this evening, and she mentioned with some dismay that Nicholas hasn't learned how to do anything new in the last week. Not really, I replied, because he's starting to grab his toys (a phenomenon that has already begun to lose its charm since he grabbed my glasses for the first time this afternoon).

However, by and large the advent of new skills has slowed dramatically. At the beginning, it seemed like every day, and sometimes multiple times a day, Nicholas came up with something we'd never seen before. Actually, we occasionally noticed that even before he was born. But now he's eleven weeks old, and so changes seem more gradual, perhaps on a weekly rather than a daily level. He's making a lot more sounds (the intentional kind), and he's grabbing things, and he's getting much better at holding his head up. He still can't sit up unless someone or something supports him, but his muscles are a lot stronger.

It's a little sad, in a way, because it was fun to watch him develop skills so rapidly and, seemingly, effortlessly. On the other hand, it's a little odd to be nostalgic already, but we can't help but feel just how much he's changed since he was born, that he'll never be that way again, and that he won't really be this way for all that long.