He’s walking! As in, he is done crawling as of yesterday, forever. I have been told it’s sad and i understand why but i just feel reminded. Reality is that it will constantly change, each part of it is supposed to be and I better pay attention (and document) because the cute things they do are so special and so gone in seconds. It’s not sad because there are 20 to replace the one. I do have a ridiculously bad memory and I never want to forget that crawl, so I need need need to document. Part of me was excited for him to walk because he so badly wanted to play with other kids that were bored with him and also i could tell he wanted to get places and couldn’t on his knees. So, there it is…… be careful what you wish for.
CUTE….The front of his little black toes have whlte scars on them from never wearing shoes while crawling on surfaces like cement (he’s gonna hate me for that). I have never taught him ‘high five’, it says ‘sports’ to me (which I have grown to resent knowing that $millions$ of American’s money is going towards paying one person vs feeding a whole country). All of a sudden the baby starts giving people ‘high fives’. So many people walk up to him and say it that he learned it and he loves it. How cute?!
He walks and he falls a lot. Sometimes the falls look so painful but he shakes it off and stands up. Their bones must be made of rubber, I swear. He’s got a bruise on his cheek from holding a small glass container of African Shea Butter I put in a baby food container, which by the way I have yet to purchase baby food, and tripping over a toy. It all seemed so harmless until SPLAT.
Every time I sit to write I end up changing the original topic…that must be a personality type.
91.
Since this perfect (for me) child and I came home from Ethiopia to start our new life together, he might have well have moved mountains. When we first arrived here he could barely crawl, as in he could not crawl across the room without crying for help because it was so traumatic for his weak little body and spirit. I was so excited for him the first time he put one knee in front of the other but clearly remember the torment he was in. It was scary and sad.
Now I look back and for a second I feel like it was so far away but the reality is it is 13 short long beautiful fun exciting intimate challenging slow fast weeks.
3 and 1/2 months. That’s it?! He has eaten dirt and drank water out of a glass by himself, learned to crawl then learned to walk, learned to fall without crying, he started to point, put the ball in the whole, he bats his eyes at people that he likes, learned to float in the pool, he picks up the phone puts it to his ear and says ‘hi’, he waves, he shakes his head no, eats Japanese fruits and yesterday said ‘uh oh’. It has stopped surprising me because he seems to be a super hero. He’s not (why did
I just start singing that song which I don’t love HUMAN LEAGUE ‘only human’ just now). So this is how it is…….Every day is a new adventure with new milestones and I so don’t want to not be surprised. What a perfect world for my kind.
This is a reminder to myself to stay surprised.
He’s really happy and feels lots of love and ultimately right now that’s my only role (other than a solid sleep schedule which i’m flailing miserably) with him.
Good times. Good times. Moving fast, better pay attention and just because he woke up for 5 minutes and needed you to help him go back to sleep at 4am doesn’t mean your day has to start so GO BACK TO SLEEP!
Good night.
90
I wouldn’t normally have thought about this but I have a really smart attorney friend that I kayak with who knows a lot about a lot and when I was telling him the chocolate colored stuffed bear story said it, so I looked it up (which I do everything anyone tells me is a fact). There is 12.6% black people in America.
In my small white rich to some degree world there is probably considerably less.
I have never thought anything about black and white except how strange it was that people think about it. This innocence (or ignorance) is beautiful and I am grateful for it. I am always surprised when people talk about race. I guess I am talking about it now? It never makes any sense to me. I am sure it is legit to some for some reasons but not yet in my life.
I was wondering why people are so sensitive about what they say or do and how they care so much about politically correct or specifying their intentions. I really don’t give a shit about politically correct. I do pay attention to it for the people it matters to but I don’t excuse myself and truthfully, it is a little uncomfortable for me when others excuse themselves to me.
Why is it uncomfortable? i think its that i don’t want it to matter. It only matters to the people that keep talking about it like me right now. Ok, i will be compassionate towards peoples discomfort vs question their intentions.
Teasing, not hair
I have a very supportive and loving family.
I don’t know why but I notice now more than ever the teasing we do. I do not want anyone teasing my boy. Obviously, it is going to have to happen and that is not in my control. For many years of my life I beat my brothers to get what I needed from them. Now I can’t. If I ask ‘please don’t tease him’, then I am a wuss raising a wuss, I just know it.
If you have ever been teased as a child, then you know it can affect you for the rest of your life so don’t you think it should matter? I remember in the 3rd grade I was called BLACKY by Bobby Ferris (the second darkest kid in the school after me) all of the time and I hated being a dark person so bad. My Italian big schnozzed brothers told me I had a big nose and for the rest of my childhood and into adulthood I thought I had the biggest nose. Now I know better but it took decades of torturing myself because of this. No matter how many times an adult said to me when I was a child ‘you are going to be so happy one day that your skin is dark’, I hated it more than anything else.
It doesn’t matter what we tell our kids about themselves. They are going to believe the asshole kid that is insecure and takes it out on our kids because he can (or in this case the very loving uncle, cousin, sibling, grandparent who at some point in their lives learned from one of these assholes that that is what is funny) and nothing you say can save him from this.
