I'm Comin' Up

At my daughter’s 6-month pediatrician appointment last week, while the doctor was examining her, she grabbed onto the doc’s arm and hauled herself up into a kneeling position. The doc was a bit surprised and asked how long she’d been doing that. I told her about a week and joked that we had to lower the crib mattress so she didn’t launch herself over the side some morning. The doc then told me that most kids don’t get to that stage till more like 9 months. I guess she’d really be amazed if she saw my daughter pulling herself up to a standing position and creeping a step or two around the coffee table today.

Right now, if I put her on the floor in the middle of the room but stand next to her, she immediately grabs my leg and does a “hand over hand” crawl up my leg until she’s up on her knees. (She hates Mondays when I take my son to gymnastics and wear my slippery Spandex yoga pants.) She’s discovering which objects in every room are useful to pull herself up on. If we bring her into the living room, she crawls right over to the coffee table, which is short enough that she can reach up and grab the edge to pull herself up. She’s frustrated in the kitchen because the chair rungs are too low and the cabinet knobs are too high for her to pull up on. Any body part of any human being in a room with her is considered fair game – if you’re sitting on the floor you may find a small warm body pulling herself up your back or grabbing your knees; if you’re walking past a pair of small hands may grab at your ankles; if you lie down you’ll be scaled like Mt. Everest.

When you think about it, the motivation for a baby to get as much height as possible has to be astounding. All the most interesting action is happening far above her head. Up to now, she’s been totally dependent on someone picking her up to be able to see any higher than about knee level. We have a booster chair with an attached tray on the floor where my son eats his lunch, and if my daughter is crawling around while he’s eating, she immediately comes over, grabs onto the tray with both hands, and hauls herself up to peep at him and check out what he’s doing. Being on the floor, she can’t see up over a lot of things, and the curiosity just kills her. Even in her crib, if she’s awake and aware that we’re in the room, she’ll stop playing with her toys and pull the bumper down so she can peer over and see us.

As sad as I am to see my baby girl leaving the tiny baby stage and becoming a crawler and a creeper, I also find it incredibly exciting to watch her learn and grow and explore the world around her. I hope she continues to reach higher and higher all her life. After all, in the words of Shakespeare, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

Do You Know What I Know?

Like most toddlers, Ryan is always happy to show off his new tricks to anyone who’s willing to watch (or listen). Within the past few days, he’s had both a babysitter and his grandmother, Bammy, to show off to, and he took advantage of it both times. He ran around like a crazy boy, putting a box on his head and marching around, demonstrating his ability to put his potty seat on the potty without help, pointing out each and every wall in the room and proclaiming, “Wall!”, and breaking a few eardrums demonstrating his understanding of both the concept and the word “echo”. He’s very proud of what he’s learned.

But he doesn’t always need an audience. Sometimes he’s perfectly content to be his own audience. Yesterday morning, I woke up to a quiet recitation of his entire vocabulary coming from the other end of the hall. He had woken up and was entertaining himself (and unbeknownst to him, me) by going through his whole repertoire, just like a little parakeet. Uh-oh. Ball. Pooh. Potty. Wall. K (clock). Cuckoo. Pee! (“Pee” is always said with an exclamation point. He is a boy, after all.) Book. Mama. Poop! (Also always said with an exclamation point. Still a boy.) Vroom. Moo. Baaa. Neigh. Woo woo (that’s a train whistle). Woof woof. Up. Down. All done. Potty. (That one is apparently worth saying twice.) What. Why. Bye-bye. Bum. Eye. Bear. (All right, we’re from New England: he says bayah. Whattaya gonna do?) Rar. (That’s his lion/tiger/bear/dinosaur noise.) Ah-boom. Ah-ah-ah-choooo. Balloon. Echo! (Said in either an ear-splitting screech or a barely audible whisper, never anything in between.) Bee. Blue. At that point he had apparently exhausted himself and went back to sleep for 20 minutes or so, then woke up and did it all over again.

I love that’s he not only aware of all the new discoveries he’s making, but also that he’s just as delighted by them all as I am.

 

Wow!

For the past few weeks, Ryan’s vocabulary has been absolutely exploding. He picks up a new word or two almost every single day. Of course, a few of those words are merely mimicking something he hears someone say, but with no understanding of the meaning. For example, we tried to get him to say “thank you” the other day and got something that sounded vaguely like “takoooooo”, but he didn’t repeat it and he didn’t say it in the right context. But some words he grabs onto and relishes and uses every chance he gets. When I see him begin to play with his food instead of eating it, I often ask him, “Are you done?” and now he’s taken to announcing “Done!” whenever he’s finished with his dinner, or when his sippy cup is empty, or even when he’s ready to get out of his high chair. He obviously understands what “done” means. But my favorite new use-it-all-the-time word that he’s picked up is “wow!”.

I’m not always sure exactly what he’s referring to, but he seems to understand that “wow” means you’re looking at something new, or interesting, or different. And he often repeats it many times in succession, often with increasing (or at least varying) intensity or inflection. “Wow. Woooowwwww. Wow! WOOOWWWW!” In the morning, when he wakes up, we often hear a few quiet wows, apparently as he contemplates the excitement and adventures of the new day. Saturday night, we were visiting friends in New York and stayed in a hotel room with Ryan’s porta-crib beside our bed, and we woke at 3:45 am to the sound of a small voice excitedly (if somewhat drowsily) exclaiming, “Wow. Wow. WOW. Wow! Wooooooowwwwwww.” I’m not certain if he was even truly awake or not, but I can only assume he had just had an amazing dream.

The speed with which his vocabulary is growing is incredible to me, and the fact that the vast majority of his words are clearly understandable and used in the right context makes me shake my head in wonderment. That little brain is absorbing and learning at a rate that is just astonishing. His whole world is opening up as he learns to talk about it, to express his thoughts to the rest of the world, and to communicate with other people.

Wow.

Talk To Me

My son Ryan is reaching the age where he can both understand and speak quite a few words. It opens up a whole world of communication between the two of us. Often, this communication is very helpful. For example, when he’s starting to feel sleepy and he’s ready for a nap, either I’ll ask him if he’s “ready to go up?” and he’ll start up the stairs toward his room, or he’ll announce “up, up, up!” to let me know it’s naptime.

Sometimes it’s helpful but a bit embarrassing. When he has a dirty diaper, he’s taken to proclaiming, “Bum!” to let me know. Helpful, but embarrassing, at least in public. And, being a boy, of course another of his new favorite words is “pee”, which he uses to point out the toilet every time he walks past a bathroom, but which he also uses to announce to anyone in the house whenever Mommy goes to use the bathroom. It’s not so bad when Daddy is the only other one home, but when we have guests it becomes a bit of an overshare.

Sometimes his newfound conversational skills are just the tiniest bit too limited. Every afternoon as I bring him downstairs from his nap, as soon as he sees the front door he requests, “Ball! Ball! Ball?” and then gets frustrated because he doesn’t understand my explanation of “after lunch” or “first we have to put your socks and shoes on”. I’m hoping that he’ll begin to understand the words “wait” and “later” very soon, but for now the poor kid gets apoplectic trying to convince me to take him outside to play ball when all I want to do is put on his shoes before we go outside.

But even with his conversational limitations, the fact that we now have give-and-take conversations where we both obviously understand each other is amazing to me. He happily complies with requests for a kiss or a hug, or to bring me a toy, or to throw something in the trash, or to show something to Daddy. Instead of merely pointing and grunting when he wants something, he can now often specifically ask for something that’s out of reach, like a book or a ball or a teddy bear or a pillow. He’ll even pick out a video by the picture on the cover and bring it to one of us, telling us which one it is by announcing “Pooh!” or roaring like the Lion King or making a monkey noise like King Louie in the Jungle Book.

But I’d better cut this entry short – I hear a small voice from the other room announcing, “uh-oh”…

The Physics of Spoons

There are many processes in life that are so deeply ingrained in us that we don’t realize how complicated they really are. For example, a trained dancer who is asked to do a “triple time step” will perform a complicated series of steps without thinking about each separate part. To her, a triple is essentially a single action. To a dancer with less experience, the process consists of hop, shuffle, step, flap, step, stomp, reverse. To a dancer who is just learning the step, the process is something more like hop on your left foot, brush your right foot back and forth then step back and put your weight on your right foot, brush your left foot forward then step with your weight on it, step back onto your right foot, stomp your left foot on the floor, then do the whole thing all over again in the opposite direction. Put that way, it’s easy to see how complex the sequence is – at least, until you know it so well that you do it without thinking about it.

For a toddler, using a spoon is just as complicated. We adults don’t think twice about using one: you grab the spoon, you scoop some food onto it, you stick it in your mouth. Easy peasy, right? But if you watch a child who’s just learning to use a spoon, you realize that there are a lot of tiny picky details that we don’t even think about.

First of all, where you hold the spoon is very important. If you grab the very end of it, not only does it take a lot of coordination to scoop something onto the bowl of the spoon, but the slightest motion flings whatever is on the bowl up into the air and very far away from your mouth. You need to find that “sweet spot” where you have both strength and control. Short-handled baby spoons make this a little easier to deal with, at least, but it still takes practice to find that perfect balance point.

Next, you have to contend with the whole “angle of attack” thing. Gravity is not in your favor with most orientations. Sure, if we’re talking about cold Cream of Wheat or pudding, something will stick to the spoon no matter what orientation you hold the spoon at. Even something a bit soupier like applesauce or yogurt is pretty forgiving. But dry, unsticky things like peas or rice have an unpleasant habit of jumping right off the spoon unless the bowl is perfectly upright. And I don’t mean just upright when you scoop. It has to stay upright for that whole precarious journey from plate to mouth. That’s asking a lot of a child who six months ago could hardly sit up without assistance.

And then of course, you have the whole scooping action itself. You can’t just randomly jab the spoon into the food and hope to come up with something in the bowl. Unless we’re back to Cream of Wheat or pudding, the random jab maneuver is not likely to meet with a lot of success. The spoon needs to start off deep enough in the pile of food to get a mouthful on it, and it needs to move steadily enough to avoid dislodging its contents during the whole scooping arc. Again, peas and rice are not cooperative with this step of the process, and often result in an empty spoon reaching the mouth.

Impressively, most children do not seem to be particularly frustrated or disappointed by the empty spoon. Ryan, at least, enjoys chewing on the spoon as much as he does chewing on the food, so an empty spoon in the mouth is merely a mid-meal toy break. (It is also useful as a drumstick, thereby leading to another type of mid-meal toy break.) Nor is he bothered by the fact that as much food lands on his shirt and on the table as makes it into his mouth. Occasionally his hunger overtakes his interest in the spoon and he shovels a few mouthfuls in with his hands, but generally he goes back to working with the spoon again pretty quickly.

As I watch his skills develop, and as I watch his surprising patience and diligence in practicing and honing those skills, I am once again amazed at how quickly children go from not even comprehending how something is done to mastering it completely. Within just a few months, Ryan has gone from tottering a few steps to confidently running all over the house. He’s gone from staring uncomprehendingly as us when we talk to him to eagerly responding to verbal requests and recognizing names and objects. He’s gone from sitting back and watching other people show him his toys to actively finding things (toys and non-toys alike) to amuse himself with. And I can only imagine what changes are to come over the next few months. I can hardly wait!

On and Off, or, the Joy of Prepositions

When I was in 7th grade, my English teacher made everyone in the class memorize a long list of prepositions and recite them aloud. We got bonus points if we could blurt them all out within 20 seconds. I still remember long stretches of that list: aboard, about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, down, during, except, for, from…(big blank space here where apparently I’ve lost some brain cells in the intervening years)…of, off, on, over, past, since, through, throughout, under, underneath, until, up, upon, with, within, without. And much in the same way that l m n o p in the alphabet song merges into the single complex letter “elemenohpee”, a number of the prepositions merge together into words like “alongamongaroundat” and “untilupupon”.

Ryan has another decade or so to go before he gets to discover that preposition list, but he’s getting a head start these days, particularly with the prepositions “on” and “off”. As I’ve mentioned before, he developed a fascination for light switches some time ago and as a result I repeat the words “on” and “off” to him all the time. Our morning ritual still includes waiting at the door of his room so he can flip the light switch while I announce, “Off!” And waiting again at the top of the stairs so he can turn the hall light “On!” And again at the bottom of the stairs to turn it back “Off!” And on and on. And every time, I carefully announce “off” or “on”. So I’m sure that he’s beginning to associate those words with a light turning off or on.

Although I’m afraid he might be a bit confused, because he’s probably also associating the words “on” and “off” with whether he’s flipping the switches up or down. And the added complication for that is that several of our lights are controlled by multiple switches, which means that flipping a switch down doesn’t necessarily turn the light off, and flipping it up doesn’t necessarily turn it on. I find that a bit confusing myself, and I know how light switches work.

And there’s still another wrinkle adding to the confusion: Ryan has recently discovered the art of putting something on the table and then taking it off the table, and I announce “on” or “off” as appropriate there, too. So as he learns to associate with word “on” with putting something on the table, will he also start to look around to see if a light just went on? And when he moves it off the table and I announce, “Off!”, will he be expecting the room to get darker?

But wait, it gets still more complicated. Ryan has learned to pull his own socks off, so we sometimes play the “on and off” game with his socks. He takes his socks off, I put them back on – all the while announcing, “Sock off! Sock on!”

When you think about it, the words “on” and “off” have an awful lot of meanings that don’t really seem to be related. What does extinguishing a light have to do with removing an object from atop another object, or pulling an article of clothing away from your body? But we explain all of those ideas with the word “off”. It’s amazing that children ever learn this crazy English language at all.

But I can’t think about that right now. I have to take off – Sesame Street is on!

Happiness Is...an Empty Apartment

This past weekend, my sister got married. She and her now-husband had found an apartment just before the wedding, so they haven’t had a chance to move any furniture in yet. This afternoon, Ryan and I took a field trip to see their new place. And Ryan discovered nirvana.

The living room and dining room are combined, so the main part of the first floor is one big carpeted room. Not only that, but it has lots and lots of electrical outlets, a low-hanging chandelier, a half-wall topped with banister rails, and windows that open with cranks that are at a reachable height for little fingers. Ryan couldn’t get enough of it. He played with the window crank at one end, then crawled at top speed all the way to the other end of the room, then sat and reached for the chandelier, then turned around and crawled back to the half-wall and stood on his tiptoes to reach the banister rails. After he’d done that a few times, he discovered the next bit of nirvana: the stairs.

Not only are the stairs carpeted, but they make several turns so it’s like crawling up a giant corkscrew. A giant corkscrew with several light switches at the bottom. And more banister rails. (That were just wide enough that he probably could get his head stuck between them. We did not explore that possibility, much to his chagrin.) He would have gone up and down those stairs for hours if we’d let him. But there was more: closets galore!

The biggest complaint about most apartments is not enough storage space. But this townhouse has closets and storage nooks all over. There’s a coat closet with swinging doors right inside the entryway. There’s a pantry with dozens of narrow shelves in the hall. There’s a Ryan-sized storage area under the stairs. There are drawers and cabinets all over the place in the kitchen and bathrooms. There are narrow linen closets tucked in here and there. Nearly everywhere Ryan turned, he found a door to open. And with nothing in them, no-one stopped him from opening them or sticking his head or hands in to explore them. So he tested them all, over and over again.

He discovered a number of places that were tantalizingly within reach, if he could only stand on his tiptoes or stretch high enough. He found that he could just barely touch the faucet and taps of the sink in the downstairs bathroom. He could reach almost all the doorknobs. He could peek onto shelves and into cupboards. He could even look out of the living room windows without needing a boost.

By the time Sue and Steven come home from their honeymoon, their bedroom will be furnished, at least, and I’m sure it won’t take much time for them to move their things into the rest of the apartment and make themselves a nice, cozy, furnished little nest. And I’m sure that the first time Ryan visits, he’ll find all kinds of things to explore and peek behind and crawl onto. But it will never be quite the same as that one magical afternoon when he was allowed to open every cabinet, flip every light switch, explore every staircase, and race around the room without being scolded or stopped. When you’re a toddler who’s all too used to being told, “Stop!” and “Don’t touch!” and “No!”, happiness truly is an empty apartment.

On Again, Off Again

Yesterday afternoon, Ryan mastered the light switch. He’s been curious about them for a while, and will often reach for one and poke it with the tip of his finger, but yesterday was the first time he managed to flip the switch at will – and recognize the results. The look of amazement on his face was priceless.

Unlike doorknobs (which he is also trying desperately to master), our house has very few light switches that are within his reach. There are a couple he can almost reach if he climbs on the back of the couch (which is highly discouraged), but there’s also one at the bottom of the basement stairs that he can reach if he stands on his tiptoes or stretches really hard. Or if Mummy lets him climb on her lap while she sits on the stairs (which is pretty common, since it’s the best way to stop him from climbing all the way up the stairs). And since that particular light switch is a double switch, it’s even more exciting!

The two lights that it controls are directly overhead and right behind him, so it definitely helps him make the connection between flipping the switch and seeing the light go on or off. We spent a long time this morning with him flipping the switch as I announced, “On!” or “Off!”, looking at the light that just went on or off, and then giggling. I love watching him delight in his “power” to make light. He would very solemnly look at the switch and deliberately flip it up, then throw his head back to see the light bulb that just went on and grin in amazement. Then he would look at me as if to say, “See what I just did?” And then he’d flip it down and do the same thing. Over and over and over again, on and off and on and off and on and off, light and dark and light and dark and light and dark.

I’m sure it’s not particularly good for either the light bulbs or the light switches, but I’d be happy to rewire half the house just to see Ryan’s fascinated expression. It’s not just the bulb that lights up, it’s also that adorable little face. And, I suspect, the adoring big face that’s watching.

The Universality of Babies

Last night we watched the movie, “Babies”. The film is a fascinating – and almost entirely wordless – documentary following four babies from different parts of the world through their first year or so of life.

The opening of the film shows a close-up of a heavily pregnant mother in Namibia grinding berries to make a kind of red dye that she uses to paint her belly. We see a seconds-old baby, still connected to her mother by her umbilical cord, in a modern hospital in Tokyo. We see an hours-old baby in San Francisco, hooked up to tubes and monitors in another modern hospital. And we see a days-old baby being tightly swaddled in blankets and tucked in his mother’s arms as she climbs onto the back of a motorbike, apparently for the trip back to her home in Mongolia.

As the movie progresses, each group of scenes seems to have a kind of a theme: how the babies eat, how the babies interact with their siblings and parents and pets, the various environmental dangers that the babies face. Some groups of scenes are remarkably similar, and some are literally worlds apart. We see each baby being fed by its parents – in three cases, being nursed by a mother, and in the fourth, being given a bottle by a father. The details may be different – the Namibian mother, for example, nurses her baby while sitting in the dirt, leaning over him to grind grain, while a second, slightly older baby nurses at her other breast, while the Japanese mother reclines comfortably in her bed as she nurses – but the essentials are universal. Even the sibling interactions are hilariously similar. The Mongolian baby sits in the middle of a yurt draped with colorful woven rugs and wails periodically as his older brother flicks him in the face with a scrap of cloth. The Namibian baby sits on the ground and periodically wails as his older brother pushes him away. One of the funniest sequences in the entire film is a series of scenes involving very patient and long-suffering family cats. We see one of the babies looking on as his brother pulls on a leash around the neck of a large (and recumbent) cat, the cat limply allowing itself to be dragged with an expression on its face that would certainly be an eyeroll, if cats could roll their eyes. We see another baby sitting with a similarly patient cat on his lap, roughly grabbing at the cat’s fur and ear as the cat simply lies there, apparently resigned to its fate. And in an especially hysterical transition, we then cut to one more cat, carefully sitting out of reach of a baby and watching it warily.

Even the scenes that show how different the babies’ upbringings are have a core of universality, though. We see the Namibian baby calmly playing in the dirt as a herd of cattle wanders around him, the solid, powerful hooves looking no less dangerous than the heavy, wicked horns. The Mongolian child lies on a rug-draped couch as a large rooster with huge, dagger-like spurs casually hops up and saunters past. The American child careens across a playground on a little car, plowing through a crowded sidewalk and face-planting magnificently in a large sandbox. The dangers may vary from place to place, but there are dangers in every environment, no matter how primitive or how progressive.

But aside from the anthropological fascination I found with the film, I was also fascinated with how much of Ryan I saw in each baby. From the funny little newborn facial expressions, to the wide-eyed curiosity, to the babbling and mouth sounds, to random objects going directly into the mouth, to the jelly-legged attempts to stand up, there was a sense of familiarity in every scene and with every child. The soft cooing and singing of the mothers as they rocked sleepy babies made me smile as I thought of myself doing the same thing. Even the tightening in my chest as I saw each baby in danger of being hurt was recognizable as a sensation felt by every parent in a similar situation.

Ryan is not exactly like any other baby that ever has or ever will be on this earth, but there are some things about his life that have been experienced by every other baby that ever has or ever will be on this earth. It’s a wonderful blend of uniqueness and commonality.

Master of the House

Yesterday afternoon Ryan was on a tear – marching everywhere, curious about everything, getting into as much mischief as he possibly could. I figured that he’d burn himself out and be mellower today, but no dice. He’s got just as much energy AND curiosity as he had yesterday, and then some! And he decided to use all that energy exploring the house this morning.

Herb had gotten up with him and fed him breakfast, and by the time I got up, got dressed, and got breakfast, Ryan was downstairs in his playpen having a bottle as a little “topper”. I took him out, thinking he’d be happy to sit on my lap and work on the bottle, as he often does. Ha! As soon as he was freed from the playpen, he lost all interest in the bottle and wanted me to march around the basement with him. So he marched along the couch, looked out the sliding glass doors for a moment, stuck his head into the bathroom, paused for a moment to roll around a few cans of soda next to the fridge, peeked in the study at Daddy, stopped to play with the plastic tag on Daddy’s camera bag, made a thwarted attempt to explore the laundry room, and banged on the air filter for a few minutes. Then he did the whole circuit again. And again. And again. And then he climbed the stairs – but instead of the usual attempt to go back down the stairs once he’d reached the top, he decided to explore the kitchen.

He opened every cabinet and studied its contents. He smacked the front of the fridge and pressed his nose against the sliding glass doors. He crawled under the kitchen table to see what he’d dropped at breakfast. He preened in front of his reflection in the dishwasher, the stove, and the wine fridge. He smacked the trash can on the way into the dining room.

He examined the wine rack and stood up to drum on the extra chair. He fingered the decorative table with the wrought-iron leaves. He stared at the chandelier from every angle. He stood on tiptoe to peek out the window. He crawled through the entryway, pausing for a moment to check out the extension cord on the doorjamb. He nearly fell over craning his neck to look at the chandelier far overhead.

Just as he reached the living room, the clock struck the hour and he stopped dead in his tracks to listen to the chimes and study the pendulum. As soon as the echo of the chimes died away, he was off and running again – checking out the firewood, the fireplace doors, the fireplace tools. No sooner did I thwart that attempt than he scooted behind the lounge chair and discovered the guitar! He spent quite some time strumming the strings and (gently!) patting the body and listening to the reverberations. Then on past the piano and back down the hallway to go back through the living room, this time edging, crablike, along the glass-top coffee table, drumming as he went. Then a peek into the bathroom, checking out a few cabinet doors on the way, and the entire circuit again. And again. And again! He stopped to consider going up the stairs, but apparently decided he was too tired to manage the third floor explorations at the moment.

I wonder if he has the concept of, “This is my house” or “This is where I live”. Is he exploring because he understands that this is where he spends most of his time, and is likely to spend more time here in the future? Does he feel some primitive form of ownership? Or at least of familiarity? Is he exploring in order to create or deepen that familiarity? Or is it just curiosity and the knowledge that exploring here is allowed? Whatever his reason, he certainly does love becoming the master of the house.

It's Just a Matter of Trust

Ryan would happily spend all day long marching around, hanging on to my hands. In fact, he’s got me so well trained in providing said hands that in the middle of doing something else, he’ll decide he wants to stand up and walk and without even looking around, he’ll just hold up his hands and grab, assuming (usually correctly) that my hands will be right there, ready and waiting for him.

It’s such a lovely demonstration of trust. He doesn’t need to confirm that I’m there, or that I know what he wants, or that I’m willing to help. He doesn’t need to see me, or to see my hand and reach for it. He just reaches out, like a surgeon who needs a scalpel, without a doubt in his mind that my hand will magically be there for him. I find the most interesting part of that to be the “not looking”. When you sit down at the dinner table and reach for your fork, you know the fork is there, and yet you still look at it before you pick it up. You don’t just blindly reach out and assume it will somehow land in your hand. But that’s exactly what Ryan does. That’s true trust.

What a wonderful thing for a child to have that kind of trust. No doubt, no hesitation. Expecting Mom or Dad to be there for him all the time, with never a flicker of thought that they might not be. He plunges through life, absolutely secure that we will be there to protect him from dangers and to provide for his every need. And we do. When he climbs the stairs, I’m right behind him to be sure he doesn’t fall back down. When he scrambles across the couch, I’m at the edge making sure he doesn’t launch himself onto the floor. When he’s playing beside the pool, one of us is always between him and the water. When he’s playing in the pool, Daddy has him securely to be sure he doesn’t try to breathe underwater or forget that he can’t actually swim. We strap him into the car seat, the grocery cart, and the stroller so he doesn’t get himself into trouble. Everywhere he goes, and everything he does, he doesn’t need to be concerned with his own safety because we do it for him. He trusts us to protect him. He trusts us utterly and completely.

But someday, probably sooner than I expect, he’ll decide that he’s ready to trust himself. He’ll walk without holding my hands. He’ll bob in the pool without assistance for a split-second. He’ll climb the stairs without a human cushion behind him. He’ll launch himself off the couch. And he’ll probably crash into something, get water up his nose, fall down a stair or two, and land on the floor on his head. And he’ll probably cry. But he’ll also probably get up, dust himself off, and do it all over again. And he’ll discover that he’s pretty trustworthy, too.

Ode to a Watering Can

This morning was a bit warm and oppressive, so after Ryan had breakfast we wandered out onto the porch for some fresh air. Ryan had a lovely time tromping over the slate tiles, feeling for the grout with his bare toes, but what truly grabbed his attention was the big empty watering can sitting next to the railing. It’s nearly as big as he is, but light enough that he was able to pick it up and sling it around with no trouble. And sling it around he did!

First off, he turned it all around to examine every side and angle. He held it by the spout and looked carefully at the side and top handles. He grabbed the side handle and examined the dust on the bottom. He transferred his grip to the top handle and re-examined the spout. He very carefully felt the little holes in the white tip and ran his fingers along the connection between the white and green plastic. He put it down and peered into its depths. He laid it on its side and rolled it back and forth.

Next came the auditory examination. Each part of the can had to be banged on and the sounds compared with the bangs on another part. He banged the flat bottom, first with one hand, then with the other, then with both. He rolled the can over and banged each side in turn, occasionally banging the bottom in between. He banged each handle and the spout, although the lack of resonance in the narrower bores was obviously a disappointment. He then banged the entire can on the slate.

The third round, of course, was taste testing. A little lick here, a little lick there, a quick suck on the white spout. (Don’t worry, gardeners, this is a strictly water watering can – no noxious chemicals or fertilizers to be concerned about.)

And then the complete examination started over again from the beginning. After hearing and tasting, naturally the looks needed to be re-studied. Once again, careful hands gripped and patted and turned while intense eyes took in every feature. The lip around the base was studied in detail, as was the nubby handle. Little fingers were poked into the hole at the top and through each handle. Little eyes peered through each handle as well, and attempted to peer into the tiny holes in the spout. A little nose was pressed against all the surfaces (and I suspect a little tongue was, as well).

He spent at least 15 minutes sitting on the porch, happily studying that watering can. And I wonder what he learned from it. Did he make the connection that the bigger canister makes louder bangs than the narrower handles and spout? Did he understand that he can’t see into the holes in the spout because they’re too little? Did he recognize that the can sits more securely on its flat base than its curved side? Did he understand that it’s easiest to hold by its handle rather than its spout? Has he begun to connect the word “green” that I repeated with the color he sees when he looks at the can? Are all these little details merely lurking at the back of his brain, ready to come back into his consciousness as he makes other discoveries and connects what he saw today with things he has yet to learn?

It’s just a watering can, and he’s just a baby, but I can see great discoveries coming out of their brief interaction!