July 2 is a big day for our family. It's Uncle Joe's birthday! (Happy 35th Uncle Joe!) Mama & Daddy got engaged on July 2, 2005, while camping in Acadia National Park, Maine. Mama and Daddy celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary today, on July 2, 2010. (Well, that's because Mama forgot COMPLETELY about the actual wedding anniversary last week. I had surgery, folks, it was a strange week.) You cut another bottom tooth today. I didn't even know it was coming, and then suddenly there it was. But, most importantly:
Ben, today you took 3 distinct, clear, no-mistaking them, independent steps. We were at Welles Park and you were wearing hard-soled shoes that we just decided to start using, even though I have been told that you'll learn to walk better/more quickly barefoot or in soft shoes. But, you love shoes! You're obsessed with them. You keep sticking and unsticking the velcro. You keep asking for them (in your little wordless way) and putting them next to your feet, and trying to put them on your feet. You took a two hour nap this morning wearing these very same hard-soled sneakers.
You had just gotten off the bouncy ship and you were holding the empty sand pail that a little girl generously lent you. You were focused on the pail, and on the fountain nearby that was showering great umbrellas of water for kids to run through. And, you had an audience. Robyn, Paul and your buddy Evan, in town from Portland, were there, along with the many, many kids and parents filling the park. And, I had just told Robyn all about how you weren't walking yet, and about how ridiculous I think the pressure is that I'm sensing even from sites like Baby Center -- which is supposed to be supportive of all us mamas, no? -- with their emails that seem to needle: "IS YOUR BABY WALKING YET?! DOCUMENT THIS MOMENTOUS OCCASSION WITH OUR..." whatever the heck it is that they're shilling.
But, I think it was mostly the shoes and the pail. Your hands were occupied, your mind distracted. You took three solid steps toward me (or perhaps toward the fountain). And it looked like the most ordinary thing in the world, except that I had never seen you do it before.
Congratulations, baby. Can't wait to see you do it again!
Love,
Mama
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Hooray for Ben! What a big boy! It really is such an exciting moment for a mommy and the little one.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is waaaaay too much pressure for kids to reach "milestones". I do not believe that early walkers/talkers/eaters/etc are smarter or destined for more greatness! Let's just let kids be kids, you know?!
Thanks, Maureen!
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