Blog a la Cart

To My Toddler,

Because literally, in just a brief 30 days, you have gone from baby to toddler. You stagger around the room, still unsure of your own feet, but man, do you aim for the ambulatory two-legged life. If fact, GO WALK! (which sounds comparable to “GUAC” a la Guacamole) is one of your four phrases. You demand to GUAC!, constantly. You stand and determinedly point in our direction while chanting GUAC GUAC GUAC! (I’m waiting for a hail of avocados to rain down upon us) until we offer you our two fingers so that you may guide us around the room. Your Doda has come to refer to it as the Bataan Death March as you stomp up and back and up and back and UP AND BACK (rinse, repeat) on our patio. My late 20-something body can barely keep up!

Just this past week you have begun stepping out on your own and walking for more than five steps at a time sans pointer finger support from parental beings. My favorite part of this development is that you uneasily stumble to me or you daddy, mouth wide open with joy, and as soon as you reach our arms, you collapse inside and nestle into our chest. It truly melts my heart. Then you peel your face from our shoulders, and beam with such pride while vehemently clapping your hands at your own success.

BRAVO, YOU!

At this rate, no doubt next month I’ll be writing about your 1st marathon.

The other three phrases you have come to master include ALL DONE! which is said at the end of any meal while tearing off your bib. You are quite adamant in these statements. And oh boy, if we don’t abide. The tears. The waterworks. The wails of discontent and melodrama. You are going to make an epic angsty teen.

My most favorite ALL DONE!, however, comes at bedtime. We sit and stare at the stars emanating from your Lady Bug night light, your cow print blankie twisting between your fingers, while you enjoy your bottle of milk and your daddy and I hum lullabies or whisper stories about the moon. When the bottle is drained, you sigh deeply and say, ever so slowly and quietly, Aaaaall Doooone, as though resigning yourself to the end of another day. It brings such peace to the entire household.

You also love to throw things on the ground and then look around innocently while claiming, UH OH!

We think that your understanding of this phrase could use a little work.

Scrambled eggs tossed off the high chair. UH OH!

Magnets strewn about the kitchen floor. UH OH!

Tidbits of macaroni and cheese offered to Ursa. UH OH!

Hanna turned into a powdered donut thanks to items thrown from the changing table. UH OH!

Your agency in these events is unmistakable, despite your utterance of innocence and accident.

And finally, you have come to refer to yourself and the dogs as GOOD GIRL! A signal perhaps of how comparably your father and I treat all three of you, but adorable nonetheless.

I have done a poor poor job of documenting the events of the past month. Between Momar and Doda selling the house, a wedding and vacation in Nashville, my big event at work, which included your daddy and my college 5 year reunion, I’ve been absent from writing and photographing and videoing your daily developments. But that of course has not stopped you from growing leaps and bounds on a minute to minute basis. Slow down, you.

Since I never wrote a follow up post to your 1st birthday festivities, here is a slideshow of that happy day where the people who love you most in this world gathered to celebrate you and your first year of life. It is put to the song that your mommy and daddy walked down the aisle to on our wedding day. Our dear friend Dave (of the ever-talented Darlingside) wrote the music and performed the song during the ceremony. For the song, I asked that he adapt Kahlil Gibran’s passage “On Children” from The Prophet. What he created fulfilled every wish I had for that moment when our parents stood by our sides and we joined hands and formed our own family.

Now that I am a parent those lyrics have new resonance, and I feel for you all those things my mommy and daddy felt for me that day, woven into that song.

143 Mama

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“On Children” by David Senft
Adapted from the poem by Kahlil Gibran
———————

Through you unto the world they come,
yet you undivided they are not from.
With you a while until they’ve grown,
your sons and daughters are life’s own.

To them your thoughts you cannot give,
so love unaffected the paths they live.
Be, as they flower, their trusted stem,
and you may strive to be like them.

The archer draws and bids them soar.
(He bids them swiftly fly)
He bends us back and sends them over the sky,
and with His bow He watches by.

Our love will be unwritten word,
proudly intended and softly heard,
held in our hearts by heavenly hand,
lifting us up that we may stand.