Amazing what a little sunshine can do.

Evan and I have baby bjorned and jog-strolled all over the beaches of the shore, saying hello to all the hatching spiders and full-of-beans chipmunks and singsongy chickadees along the way. Makes one feel a little less housewifeish. A little less house-arrested like Martha Stewart, minus the cedar henhouse and pastry staff.

One year ago, I found out I was pregnant.

Today, Evan is four months old and becoming a boy before our eyes. He loves to stand up, and bears just about all his own weight. Our newest game is to stand on the bathroom counter in front of the mirror as he jumps from a squat to a ‘Look at Meee!’ rock star stance, squealing at himself with delight.

When he’s nursing, he pops off every now and then to look up at me, wide, milk-drippy grin on his face, like he’s flirting. It turns me into butter and he knows it.

Although that’s nothing to when he laughs, which he’s just started doing. Real laughing, deliberately connected chuckles. It’s heaven. And on his belly, he’ll inchworm forward in an almost-crawl, leaving behind him what Justin calls a ‘little slug trail’ of teething drool. We’re so proud we’re just about bursting.

On low-energy days though, I wish I could just turn his switch to OFF. Just for an hour or two.

To decompress, to be selfish, to be luxuriously lazy. But then I remember that as he grows up the baby will disappear, never to be seen again. And I’ll miss four-month-old Evan as desperately as I now miss newborn Evan.

So I drench him in kisses, smother him with cuddles, blow raspberries on his belly, rub my nose into the long, silky hair at the back of his neck. All the liberties I'm entitled to as his mom.

Because before long he'll groan and say, "Uggh gross, quit it, Ma!" when I lick my finger and rub a smudge off his cheek. As he should. Until then, I'm going to try to remember to get my fill, no matter how long the day.