Happy

Joshua woke up this morning with a vision. He wanted to go out and sit in the car in the driveway. Nothing I could do would deter him from his goal; no video, no food, not the offer of snuggling. He wanted to go sit in the car. I even told him that I couldn't put music on in the car because that's been draining my car battery. No matter. The kid just wanted to sit in the car. He even eventually gave up on trying to drag me out there by pulling me by my hand and said, "I want to go to the car." Fine. I try to give him what he wants when he uses his words.

Now I am sitting in my front yard in my pajamas with an amazingly great, dark cup of coffee and my laptop. Joshua is experimenting with loud noises and gurgling sounds of different pitches. He is very, very happy. The loud noises and gurgling sounds are punctutated with bursts of uproarious laughter.

When Josh is happy, he is exceedingly happy. He is not trying to be happy. He is not putting on any act of being happy. He is not being happy in order to have any effect on anyone else. Sometimes, I think I experience being happy because I think I should or because I feel the need to be happy to balance out being sad. It's not that complicated for my son. He just is happy. I rarely know why. When something amuses or tickles him, he's just in it. And it comes out of him loudly. It feels simple and pure to me.

Here are a few pictures of Josh being happy. We often sit alone in the baby cry room during the Sunday service at church. I let him listen to music on my phone while I try to listen to the sermon on the video feed. At this particular moment, listening to the Black Eyed Peas is making Josh very happy.