This may not come as a surprise for some of our friends with kids already, but it came as quite a surprise to me. It turns out that I have become THAT guy. Picture if you will, a man half awake holding his child stumbling towards the kitchen, towards the coffee. On the way, he steps on a squeaky toy, stubs his toe on the toy train and almost breaks his neck trying to fumble and stumble to the coffee. How did this once confident and dare I say debonair man become a hardly ever shaven, dare I say, disheveled man? And love it. Once the dream was to become president, now, that same man just dreams to sleep in (past 7 AM that is). Actually, it really is like that, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The reason is quite simple really – Ellie is becoming less like a baby and more like a toddler every day. This basically means that she is more interactive and more fun than ever. Elise is on the verge of walking. She refuses to let you hold both hands while she walks around (only needs one) and she cruises around furniture like it was designed for that purpose. She (finally!) has one tooth – she’s picked up waving bye-bye (mostly) – is totally onto saying mama and dada – she’s climbing the stairs all by herself (and with record speed) - she’s even going to the playground and playing on the swings and slide.
Ellie's first tooth! (Bottom right)
Elise is learning new things and growing older every single day. I think I’m just going to go come home one day and she’s going to be walking, talking, asking her daddy to go to the playground. How idyllic, don’t you think? Oh, but there are more aspects of her personality coming through everyday too. Lately, Ellie has developed the ability to shake her head no. And she has quickly learned what this means. When she no longer wants food, when she’s not ready to get out of the bath…and mostly, when she’s climbing the stairs when she knows she is not supposed to. She’ll start out cautiously, then, when Meredith or myself says, “Elise, you know better, no going up the stairs.” Then, she will turn to us, smile a coy little smile and then shake her head no and proceed up the stairs.
Elise her pal and neighbor Myles (also 9 months old)
Now, at first we found this adoring and cute (still do really) but quickly realized that this is a terrifying glimpse into our future. Elise is going to be 5 years old, about to jump off the top of the jungle gym when one of us will yell, “No, Elise, don’t move!” The next thing we’ll see is the coy smile and a head shaking no and an arm breaking as she hurls from the jungle gym. Rushing to the hospital, Meredith blaming me the whole way, we’ll go back in our minds wondering where we went wrong. Oh, if only we hadn’t thought it was so cute on the stairs when she was little. The humanity!!!
You can see it is causing some great consternation with each new ability comes the greatest excitement and the greatest new worries. With teeth, come biting, with waving bye-bye comes smacking daddy in the face early in the morning (she’s practicing), with saying mama and dada comes NONSTOP talking ("but why, daddy?"), with climbing the stairs comes falling and with playing at the playground comes bullying… most likely from her.
I could’ve been president, but how boring is that?!?
No comments:
Post a Comment