Hilltop

chase  ·  Fri, Nov 13, 2015

Today I skipped work to join Misty for a sign language class in the morning and a postpartum massage in the afternoon. While those two appointments were our fixtures, we rounded out the day with a bunch of other indulgences: breakfast at Brenda’s in the morning (delicious shrimp and goat cheese omelette), lunch at Burgermeister, dinner from a falafel/shawarma joint, and dessert-in-a-cup from Bi-Rite. All day long we kept marveling that it was only Friday and we still had the whole weekend to spend together.

And passers-by marveled at Milo, who spent most of the day against my chest in the ergo carrier and who appreciated either the novelty or the comfort of my touch enough that she didn’t fuss too much. She was mostly awake and observant. She even let me eat my breakfast in peace, not minding one bit that I dropped biscuit crumbs on her (they rolled under her butt and she happily ground them into the ergo).

The sign language class was a blast. We weren’t even sure when it started, because our instructor, Bill White, flowed so effortlessly between chit-chat and playing with whichever baby happened to crawl nearby and casually showing us signs and singing songs. The class promised to teach us 20 signs, but he showed us three times that many, immersing us in the deep end the way you really should learn any language. Misty immediately signed up for a six-session follow-up series of classes, which I am jealous to say I mostly won’t be able to attend. But still. Even one was fun.

Of all the other great moments today, the one I may have loved most was my walk with Milo. I was watching her while Misty got a massage, and though she was well-fed, we’d worn her out, and she needed to sleep. She couldn’t do that while I was sitting down, so I put her in the carrier (buckled it behind my back without help — yessssss!), left the office, and started walking. It was a nice day out, so I decided to find the nearest park on a map. It just so happened to be on the top of a very high hill (this being San Francisco), but we took it slowly, and I hummed and bounced, and wee weary Milo looked around. After one staircase, and then another that I feared might be public property, we finally reached the summit of the Castro-Duncan Open Space:

Ruining my romanticized vision of the moment (as children are perhaps wont to do), Milo cried, and I had to keep moving instead of lingering to watch the colors fade. Apparently she didn’t appreciate the fact that she was still awake. But she liked my downhill rhythm, and she was soon asleep after that, and stayed asleep for the next hour or so while I made my way past the hillside homes, into the valley, and back and forth along the warmly-lit shops on 24th St. Once or twice I lifted one of her limp arms and let it drop back down to her side, and I couldn’t tell which of us was more content.