"Milestones." Geddit? Heh.
The little monkey is now sixteen months old. Whaaaat? Really? I'm always kind of in denial at the turning of another month. When she was under a year, I'd post her "month birthday" each month on Facebook. Now that she's over a year, I've quit torturing my Facebook peeps with that and now only annoy them with eighty million Flickr photos of the Olive with an occasional photo of something else thrown in.
See? Look! Pretty flowers!
I wonder if I am keeping track enough of all the milestones, all the little things she does that I love, all the new things each day. The Olive doesn't have a baby book. She has my Flickr photostream. And too-occasional blog posts. And a few scattered journal entries stuck somewhere on our failing Mac laptop. I get mad at myself when I forget all of the three cameras and it's a gorgeous day. But maybe it makes me be in the moment more, living the moment, present with her and not documenting it. Isnt' that what matters? But I really should keep the camera (any damn camera!) out and by the door.
So what is this little creature doing now? So many things. So many. Talking up a storm, for one. First thing in the morning, it's "MamaMamaMamaMamaMamaMama!" followed by "faaaan" (referring to the ceiling fan, except maybe without the F sound so much) followed by "innow" (window) and "up!"(which could mean either up or down sometimes) and then there's ball and banana and blueberries (not to be confused with BlackBerry) and hat and spoon and bowl and upstairs and out and shoe and CHEESE! oh my god cheese, because the girl will eat her body weight in the stuff.
She loves any kind of slope outside where she can go uphill and downhill. Our neighbor's parking space if a favorite, with its short little cement ramp from the alley to the space itself. This is a city girl - she plays in the alley, with the jigsaw of old brick and rough cement and puddles and broken glass and graffiti. It's how we roll toddle here in the District.
She understands so much now. We can tell her to do things: "Go get Mama's wallet from her bag." And she does it! (Of course, by the time I get my wallet, there are dollar bills in a trail over the living room floor and business cards carpeting the carpet, and I'm fishing dimes out of the Olive's mouth, because they taste darn near as good as rocks.) Of course, her level of comprehension immediately drops when we say "Let's get dressed!" or "Let's change your diaper!" Then we see how fast she really can run in the other direction. It's pretty fast, let me tell you.
She's a petite little thing. Eighteen pounds and 29 inches stretched out and soaking wet, at the small end of the baby bell curve. Doesn't stop her. She wants to do what the big kids do at the playground. (Playground! We go to one! She plays on it!) She climbs up the metal steps as fast as she can, trying to get up the biggest step, and not the smallest. She eschews the short little baby slide and hurls herself headfirst or feetfirst or whatever down the big slide, giggling hysterically all the way down. She's usually appropriately cautious, stopping to sit and crawl backwards down a step, even though I can tell she really, really wants to just be able to walk down it like the big kids. She isn't afraid, though. She loves getting licked and slobbered on by dogs that could eat her for a snack, finds it totally delightful. In a new place, she looks around, studies everything, intently, quietly, for about ten minutes, then once she's got the feel of the place, she starts slowly exploring, then in a few more minutes, she really lets loose and loses herself.
Nothing gets past her. She knows when and where you've tried to hide the expensive universal remote. She sees all the birds and squirrels flit through the trees, just outside the kitchen windown. She knows where the crackers are, and what pocket Mama's BlackBerry is in, and she gets agitated when you don't tend to the dinging microwave or ringing phone immediately. She carries a tote bag around the house, and tells us all "bye bye!" because she sees us do this every day.
She eats with a spoon. She wants our forks, our laptops, our shoes, our belts, my jewelry ("BEEEEDS!"). She wants to do what we do, see what we see, get up at our level, touch everything, taste everything, smash everything to bits. But not really on purpose. She's just testing.
Now that it's spring, she's eaten her first rocks, first dirt, waded through her first filthy city mud puddle (and I cross my fingers and hope that all those eighty thousand vaccinations cover the hepamenitetanutubercularsitis or whatever is in that water). She can play outside now, in our tiny backyard. I gardened this past weekend. I use that term loosely. I did plant some herbs and pull some weeds, and rake up some leaves, so I think that counts. And I could do it while the Olive just ran around and looked at things, and clambered up and down the steps. I didn't get to spend much time out there last year. Our patio is brick, and it was no place for a baby who could sit but still fell over occasionally, and was trying to crawl. I dreamed of this year, when she would be able to play outside, and it's here. I do miss the baby that she was last year - when I could just plop her on a blanket in the park and she would just stay there and I could read or text or daydream or take photos. It's always both easier and harder at different ages. It's easier now, because she can entertain herself, and play in the yard mostly safely, but harder because I have to chase her and be vigilant for pebbles going down her gullet and falling down cement stairs.
Sometimes, I find myself looking forward to her being even more interested in things, where she can really ask questions, and we can really talk, about every leaf and seed and ant and stick. Then I remind myself of how fast it goes, and try to be present in the present. And to get the camera.
Comments