He wanted to SEE everything

I miss my little boys but I realize how lucky I was to have them, two beautiful, curious, intelligent creatures that kept me challenged. Leif always wanted to be UP where he could see everything that was going on around him. I found I could do just about anything around the house if I carried him around in a baby backpack, but if I put him down, he would wail. If he could crawl and get to something interesting, that was okay, but otherwise, he wanted to be carried in some fashion until he could pull himself up and walk. 

I made many a meal with that heavy little fellow jouncing up and down on my back. He was strong, and he would hook his little toes in the support that ran across my lower back and "jump" up and down with glee.

This photo was taken by my mother. It hadn't seen the light of day because it was so badly exposed and color shifted that she had never printed it or showed it to anyone. I'm surprised she didn't just throw the slide away. As hard as I worked with PhotoShop, I couldn't get the color and exposure right. For instance, the cabinet walls were a supposed to be a lovely shade of blue. The shirt I'm wearing actually had a brown background color. Our faces in the original slide were a lurid magenta-red. So, this will have to do, but I love it because he looks joyful and brings back the memories of those days in that kitchen, in a house no longer standing. It was taken early in 1976 when he was just over a year old.