OOh, OOOh, this is important: Chas stood and boogied for the first time today! He stood in the middle of the living room and bounced up and down to music! Grinning with wide, four-tooth abandon. Any other parent knows that this is truly a fun moment in time. It’s the last time they’ll ever do that move without frowning and shoving out their lower jaw as if to say, “I’m so fly, look, I can dance (even though I feel like a total dork out here alone on the dance floor).”
One for the scrapbook
There are certain landmarks in a baby’s development that must be recorded.
I haven’t remembered to record the day Chas learned to climb the stairs, and stand alone, although it was sometime last month. I know now that he has a working intelligible vocabulary consisting of 6 words: mamamama, dada, dah (dog), bubba (brother), bubba (bubble), and buh (book). He can point when I point and clap with applause and he has a wonderful sense of humor that, these days, spreads great joy and levity. But today, at his girlfriend Sofi’s first birthday party, he impressed all of us by eating dog shit.
As with many milestones, we are often too caught-up in the moment of achievement to capture it on film, but when they are this impressive, such special advances are etched in our brain forever. Sofi’s birthdate, for example, will always be The Day Chas Ate Dog Shit.
This could very well be both the happiest time of my life and the hardest. Mothering both boys is a balancing act that I never seem to master with each day. There are always frayed edges or undone parts, sometimes it feels a little like I’m managing to walk across an invisible tightrope with the baby in my arms, that’s how fragile my grip feels. But as I stared into the lake today, beyond the bubbling enthusiasm of the pool, Chas crawled before my eyes like a gorilla in pursuit of a transparent blue beach ball with white polka dots. When he had finished chasing the ball across the concrete, he hoisted himself onto his feet and began to clap and smile. Evidence that my job is, despite the aching heart, pretty precious. I mean, he could learn to do these things on his own, I know this, but the job of being there to see it all–how fortunate I am to always be witness to these little miracles.