Our tour guide
chase · Sat, Jun 11, 2016Milo has changed a lot in the last few months again, of course. A few weeks ago I woke her up from a nap, sat her down on my lap, and opened a stack of mail. She watched each envelope intently, not grabbing or writhing, not distracted. Patient. She saw that I was doing something, and she wanted to know what it was. She wanted to learn.
She also watched me vacuum today, and she watched me mow the lawn at our new house last week. When we visited what we hope will be her future daycare — Habibi’s Hutch, a place where toddlers get dirty and learn to be themselves by playing with other dirty children — she watched every kid who crossed her path, and she even waved at a few, and a few waved back.
Other new things: she climbs. Up the baby gate, up the bookshelves, onto the bed (via the stool). When we were not too much older than Milo, my brother and I terrified our mother my scaling the chain-link fence in our back yard. Milo, it seems, will be a terror too. She also moves her hands in new ways that look vaguely like some of the ASL signs we’ve been teaching her. She responds appropriately to a word or two. She claps. She gives high-fives that are actually high-fives and not just slaps.
Best of all, I’m bonding with her. She squeals when I walk in the door at the end of the day, before I even see her. She hugs my legs when I look over the baby gate. Earlier this week, I even shushed and hummed her to sleep for a nap in my arms, which is the first time since her infancy that I’ve put her to sleep on my own (the most I usually do is sing along to Blowin’ in the Wind with Misty every night). She’s learning to love.
I always knew that introducing a child to things in the world for the first time was one of the aspects of parenthood I would relish the most. Yesterday I got a glimpse of what that might be like, because I helped a bit while Misty was babysitting Avani, who is a year older than Milo and has begun to talk. Every time we pointed at something and called it by its name, Avani faithfully repeated the word, rehearsing it and — I’m sure — committing it to memory. I know Milo is secretly already soaking everything up, but I can’t wait until she has the words to go with it. I want to be able to point to something and see it through her eager eyes. I want her to be our tour guide.