Tenth Month With You

You climb the stairs, quickly, merrily, confidently. I wait behind you. Ready to catch your fall. Remember this always. I am behind you. I will catch your fall.

Were it not for your Oma, you would be mistaken for a boy even more often. The black sweater and brown moccasins I usually put you in throw off the masses.  Although it doesn't bother me in the least, it's amazing how embarrassed strangers get when they assume you are a he. Yesterday, on the first day of your tenth month, you were donned in all of the spoils of your grandmother: flowers, pinks, and corals.

You are independent. Quietly so. You don't buck to be put down. You are usually happy to sit straddled on a left hip, always the left. But when you are set down, you happily find your own adventures. You make your way around the house. Play with toys you find along the way. Go in search of siblings. Enthusiastically destroy whatever they are working on.

You have taken approximately two dozen steps, stretched across the past month.  Although you are now able, you seem disinterested in walking and prefer to crawl. The crawling stage is all too short in my opinion, so I am happy that you have not yet abandoned it. I will miss seeing you meaty tush angled high as you make your way across our home.

As I write, you are sitting at my feet, babbling away, softly swatting at my calf. I will pick you up and place you on my lap, but in a moment's time, you will want back down to see what the cat is doing. This is how our mornings go, at least the good ones. The slow mornings. The ones that just the two of us share. You let me drink coffee and type. I hide the cat food from your greedy little fingers. This is our routine for a time. It will pass soon enough. Replaced by a new routine. And new way of doing things. But I hope we always find quiet moments with just the two of us, amidst all these people we both love so much. I hope that you, my youngest child, and I find time for each other always. Time to simply be.

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