A Boy and his Ball

We have always had balls laying around the house. But they were never really noticed or played with until about a month ago. Jack's third word (followed closely behind "Mama" and "Dada") was "ball", which is repeated continuously throughout the day. From the time that he wakes up in the morning, he wants to play. He refuses to eat breakfast (by putting his arm up to cover his face) until Chad takes him out to the basketball goal to "shoot ball". Even after that, if Chad is around, it is a constant and persistent chant from Jack of "Dada, ball. Dada, ball". If we're in the playroom, he crawls right over to the Elmo book and hunts for the page where Elmo's room has balls laying around on the floor. "Ball, ball, ball." When we go for walks in the morning, Jack proudly holds the basketball while being pushed in the stroller; and we've started keeping a big bouncy ball in the car that he holds immediately after being buckled in. He fell asleep on the way to pick up his sisters the other day, and my heart just melted when I turned around to see this:


I feel like I'm looking at what Chad must have looked like 34 years ago. My sweet boy.