Eighteen Months Today

Clara Margot, I was looking for you this morning. The boys were at school. Your baby sis was asleep in the swing. I was trying to pay bills on the second floor. My guesses were: in the bathroom unpacking the hair products and glossing up the mirror pointilism-style OR in the family room trying to eat the cherries from Hi-Ho Cherry-O. When I heard you on the third floor, I dashed up there to find you on the floor of your room trying on shoes. You were maneuvering to kick off your solid soled, T-strap walkers in favor of the pink canvas sandals that tie across the toes in a cunning little knot. They look like something Chrissy would wear on Three's Company. I tried to stay hidden but you heard me laugh and immediately started to ask to nurse.

I know this transition has not been easy. You are still so young. I vascillate between thinking that you are really a big girl, making takeout tea parties in your play house outside, body checking your brothers' friends into the wall but then coming to you in the night to find a fitful baby who can't seem to find her way back to sleep. I also know that I'm not super-consistent about the nursing. Yes, at nap and bedtime but during stories or in the kitchen just for fun, no.

I see you finding your language and it is thrilling. You can say all of our names. You say, "um. . . um" and smack your lips as if to tell a story. When you recognize me during the night, you say, "Hey" like you are Rachel on Friends rather than my baby daughter. I want to savor you as you are right now. I don't want to pretend like you are more sophisticated than you are. Or that you are more delicate than you are. Last week, when you switched to the toddler nursery, one of only two girls among five boys. You held your own on the Sit and Spin and when someone tried to snatch your book, you held it fast and said "no" in a voice that would have made Camille Paglia proud.

When you want to linger on the front porch and unpack the groceries on the steps, I need to be more patient with you. When you insist on peeling your own hard egg, I need to let you. Your alabaster skin and your omniscient eyes take my breath away. You have your Dad's elegant neck and when you turn away, your little gold hoops swing a little. Keeping up with you is my athletic challenge, you climbing the ladder at nursery school, you standing on the kitchen counter. If I have to spend all my days, in pursuit of you, me breathlessly climbing steps to get you in my arms and snuggle you, then baby, I will.