More Milestones

It’s an amazing thing to see your baby grow.

Marcel, for instance, is in the middle of spurt that’s making her taller than everyone else in her class. Of course, we see the most growth in Tristan, who turns 11 months old, soon. Her growth isn’t just size, though. Her growth is also in strength.

The most shocking growth in strength was her crawling.  Marcel never crawled. Instead, she would, while in a kneeling position, hop whereever she wanted to go. Then, fourteen months into life, she started walking.

The most remarkable growth, though, isn’t physical. It’s mental.

Marcel started reading this week. She can’t read sentences. But she can pick out words that repeat in a story. She picked out the words “scrub” and “row” from Sandra Boytons’ “The Going to Bed Book” and the words “daddy” and “cuddles” from Gutmen’s and Hallensleben’s “Daddy Cuddles.” I have looked forward to the day I taught my children to read since before–long before–I even had children, so this was huge for me.

What I didn’t expect to be even more amazing and more huge to me was the day that Tristan learned to play.

A few months ago, Tristan was sitting in her high chair, drinking from her bottle, when she got bored and threw that bottle on the floor. Marcel retrieved it and returned it to Tristan in her high chair, then went back to what she was doing. Tristan, however, simply threw it, again.

Marcel, again, got up, retrieved it and went back to what she was doing but, this time, went back with one eye looking over her shoulder at Tristan. Tristan, again, started to throw her bottle but, this time, she waited for Marcel to come back to her.  When Marcel came back, Tristan smiled and dropped the bottle at the feet of the waiting Marcel.

And thus, Tristan, for all she knew, invented the game of “catch” and taught her big sister how to play.

It was an amazing milestone to behold.

 

New Dog’s New Tricks

Sometimes, Tristan creates a vacuum in her milk bottle, which stops the flow of milk.  I suppose every baby does it.  Marcel did it, but I learned to regularly pull the bottle away so as keep the flow steady and the cries at bay.  By the time Tristan arrived, however, I must’ve forgotten the trick because she regularly creates vacuums.  Amazingly, Tristan figured out the answer to the problem all on her own.

Often while I’m daydreaming my way through Tristan’s feeding, or whatever the hell it is I’m doing, Tristan realizes that the milk has stopped flowing.  Any other baby would start crying but fail to recognize that, just by opening their mouth, they have let air into the bottle which, in turn, allows the milk to flow again, thus making further cries unnecessary.

Of course, any baby would make this mistake.  After all, they’re just a baby!  Apparently, though, Tristan isn’t just a baby because Tristan doesn’t cry.

Instead, when the vacuum occurs and the flow dries up, Tristan starts pushing at my fingers.  She’s trying to push the bottle in my hand out of her mouth.  She’s not strong enough to actually move my hand, of course, but she is strong enough to get my attention.  When she starts pushing, I pull the bottle away, we wait for the telltale bubbles and hiss to stop and, when it does, she opens her mouth and I pop the bottle back in.

Obviously, she could achieve the same affect just by opening her mouth but, given her age, her way is mighty impressive to me.

 

Matthew 21:16

Yesterday, Marcel offered me an umbrella but I didn’t take it. The offer came as she was closing the door behind me when I was leaving for work.

I refused the umbrella, in part, because I was eager to get to out of the house before a tragedy occurred. For most of her life, Marcel hated it when I left her. It made for a heartbreaking scene whenever I left for work or dropped her off at daycare. And it’s only recently begun to change.

At first, it was only rarely that she would NOT have an explosive tantrum when I left the house. Then, on occassion, she was so content with whatever she was doing–watching a favorite tv show, eating a favorite breakfast or enjoying time with my wife–that she wouldn’t even really notice that I was leaving. Eventually, she got comfortable enough with my departures, that she would even send me off with kisses and “good-byes”.

Still, on occasion, we could have tragedy. And, increasingly in recent months, Marcel would even try to leave the house with me. That’s great on a Saturday morning errand run. Impossible, however, on a work day. So my heart filled with dread when I saw Marcel run to me as I began to open the front door, last week.

“Wait, wait,” she called out.

I quickly moved to the door, but, amazingly, wasn’t fast enough. She caught me or, rather, caught the door.

“I close it,” she excitedly explained.

That was somewhat reassuring. Still, I wasn’t certain that things wouldn’t take a turn for the worse, so I urged her to close the door quickly. She refused, though.

“Wait! You need an umbrella!”

Of course, I thought on that sunny morning, Marcel just wanted to show off some new knowledge, however relevant or appropriate. Or, worse, she was just stalling for time. So I brushed her off.

“No, honey,” I explained, “I don’t need an umbrella. So, now, close the door.” Then I reached for the door.

With the exasperation of a teenager, she let out a high-pitched, elongated “okaaay“, however, and pulled back the door to preserve her opportunity at this newly discovered chance at fun.

But as she closed the door and looked at the sky in the distance, she shook her head mournfully. You see, Marcel knew the truth. The rain did come that day. And it came, again, when we repeated the episode a few days later that week.