GRIZZLY PEAR
At the end of the night, my daughter insisted on one last painting session.
As I clumsily tried to paint a rose, I started to slip in and out of the world of dream.
In one snippet, I dreamt she was traded to the New Jersey Nets. After all, I had spent much of this year following all the crazy transactions in the NBA.
I felt quite sad. She seemed quite a bit too young to leave the house.
Fortunately, there was a misshapen rose that needed to be painted welcoming me back to reality.
A few weeks ago, my wife got tired of the boy’s sweaty head after every nap so she cut his hair.
She used my clippers and just buzzed it with the second shortest extension.
Apparently, he had fun, and I was told that when he looked in the mirror, he called out “ba ba”.
But I miss his long hair, even if he doesn’t.
After half a decade of buying cheap books at the friends of the library store, we now have enough volumes to fill up six slots of the Ikea Kallax shelves. So the girl and I sorted out our own private library this weekend.
The first division we made was fiction and non-fiction, which were then sorted the rest out by author’s last name. Apart from confusing the illustrators and authors, and a child’s tendency to get distracted it went really smoothly. Some highlights from the exercise included:
In all, it was a fun exercise. It was quite interesting to go through all the books we’ve collected over the past few years, and even better to plumb the depths of a five year old mind.
Our girl recently decided to start sleeping in her own room. It was triggered when she caught a cold, got exiled from the main bedroom to avoid getting her brother sick, but then chose to stay in her own spot.
Unless it is cyclical or seasonal, change tends to feel quite sudden.
In retrospect, one might be able to see it building up. Like water turning into steam, you know it’s getting hot, but it still seems to jump between states in a blink of an eye.
Growing up is weird, even for the parents.
Our daughter caught a cold and was exiled to the guest bedroom for a couple night.
She went from barely filling out a cradle to comfortably fitting out a twin sized bed.
Life moves fast.
Or maybe it’s just the change in context that makes you aware of what done happened.
In the backyard, my boy staggered towards me as toddlers do.
He paused, looked up, and flashed a smile.
Right at me.
Then he turned around and waddled back to mama.
Kids aren’t great at showing gratitude (adults neither), but then they give you moments like that.
In March, our little guy got slammed with a cold for the first time.
Fever, chills, sweats, cough, phlegm, the whole package.
Poor guy was totally miserable. I’ve never seen him so bummed out.
The whole household morphed in response. Like the immune system, the family swarmed to address this threat.
Turned out the family did the same thing for this big boy when he got his big cold a couple months later.
I usually write my posts a month in advance, and it’s always interesting when I do it about the family and especially the boy cause you never know if the phase will be long gone by the time it actually publishes.
Over the past week he’s gone from being good at squats to being able to put one foot in front of the other, but his strength is not such that he can actually walk on his own.
However there are plenty of willing hands to help him walk.
And he’s got such a big grin when you do.
Must be fun growing up. Frustrating too. But fun.
Over the years, I’ve given my daughter rides between the bedroom and laundry in a bin full of clothes.
Yesterday I gave my boy his first ride in the bin.
Halfway there, she saw him in her bin and decided to jump in as well.
So the three of us did a couple loops around the house.
My heart was full.
As he’s learned how to walk over the past month, he picked up the habit of walking with arms outstretched, like an uppercase Y.
Usually with a big grin, quite self satisfied with this new skill.
If you weren’t paying attention you might just see a couple hands (and some hair) pass through your lower peripheral vision.
Yesterday, I saw him walking with his hands by his stomach.
I guess this phase is now waning.
It was very cute, we’ll miss it.
On to the next.