Chas is now walking across rooms. On Friday he began practicing in earnest, stopping only to eat and sleep, but today he feels he has mastered his first footed gait and is scrumptiously sleeping now in his bed, smiling and dreaming and proud of himself. His reddish hair is rumpled around his head, tired and wasted from a day of hustle-bustle, not just from walking but from climbing up and down from Ford’s booster seat in the middle of the living room floor. Chas looked like a finicky dog, spinning and adjusting, around and around for fifteen minutes atop the miniature seat, before sitting, sighing and smiling in satisfaction. And then clapping! And then he proceeded to traverse the house once more, clap, and repeat. Again and again. And again. Again. Again. again.
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Chas would very much like to walk, minus the falling down part. In the kitchen we were captive audience this afternoon. He would get up, look at us as if to say he’d just been given a $1000 gift certificate to Design Public, step step step witholding breath, then plop halfway surprised before looking up at both of us in pride, clapping his hands loudly and vigorously, grinning and soliciting our applause. At times like this I think he is entirely happy-go-lucky, just riding this whole walk-tease phase out; other times I perceive him as fiercely opinionated, like when I try to rescue my delicate cell fone out of his grasp and am met with the ringwraith scream, eardrums shattered and eyelids peeled back in strain. He’s a soft, snuggly bundle of conflicted joviality and frustration.
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Ford and I visited the Montessori school at the end of our block yesterday morning. It was poised, pretty, just bubbling with children. They practice strict Montessori method, and I was impressed with the industriousness and self-reliance of a 4 year-old girl as she swept collage remnants with a child-sized broom into a child-sized dustpan. The place glowed with purpose and warmth and Ford (and Chas, for his part) seemed to enjoy it very much. In fact, he didn’t want to leave. He was attracted to station after station, wooden baskets and utensils, glowing freshwater fish tank and sunny windows facing the children’s vegetable garden.
But there are no openings until June 2006.
This might be our opportunity in disguise to travel this year and shuffle the boys out of the country for a little exploring, while we still can.
I feel as if I’m waiting for Them to come take Chas away. With conflicting travel plans coming from more than three loved ones, I find myself pushing Chas’ birthday celebration nearly two weeks following his actual birthdate. Is it so much to accommodate everyone’s schedules that they might be able to join us in celebration, or am I reluctant for Time to take away Chas’ First Year away from me, with all of the poignant milestones? He’s not going to be a baby once he passes his First Birthday, but a toddler. It’s not fair that decades of dying are preceded by the short, enthusiastic pant of life in that first year here.