deeples

Seriously, how can almost a year have gone by?  How is that even possible in the time/space continuum? I’m almost certain I haven’t balanced my checkbook since you’ve been born and it can’t be almost a year since I’ve balanced my checkbook, right? Right?  Shit.

You are just about to take your first steps.  Just about to bust out the two front teeth. Just about to say something other than babble.  Just about to sleep through the night. Just about to figure out the whole baby sign language thing. Just about to be a year old….  

…. and I feel you, sweetie… I do.  I feel like I’m always in my 11th hour… always just about to figure things out… just about to break on through to the other side… just about to be successful… just about to live my dreams… almost… almost…

You have finally found a break in your hectic non-stop days to show a little affection.  Normally, there is just far too much to do, to see, to listen to, to point at, to think about, to grab to actually… well, lay your little sweet blond head on Mommy or Daddy’s shoulder for a moment – but lately, sometimes, rarely.. you will do this. You will briefly lay your head on the shoulder of the person holding you at that moment and we, in our glee, sometimes hold you too tight when you do. We make frantic hand gestures at anyone in the room. LOOK!, we gesture.  HEAD ON MY SHOULDER!, we point with free fingers or chins.  SHE’S CUDDLING!!!!!   We feel smug and important and special in that moment, because, generally, that’s not your way.  You want to be held, but not … you know… held.

Such a thinker, you have a perpetual “WHAAZZZAT?!!” look on your face.  You notice EVERYTHING. You hear EVERYTHING. You seem to contemplate the very fabric of our lives as you sit and crinkle your eyebrows and jam your pointer finger up in the air as if to say, “Hear me, Earthlings!  I have an important announcement!”

Of course, you also will continue to jam hotdogs and grapes and cheese into your mouth… even while you are choking.  You seem to make no correlation what-so-ever between, you know, choking on hotdogs and shoveling them in your mouth as fast as your little hands can move. Oddly amidextrous, your hands are blur while eating. Toast, cheese, mandarin oranges, turkey, waffles… it doesn’t matter.  Left! Right! Left! Right!  SWALLOW, we plead… come on, honey… swallow… chew what you can with those 2 little corn kernal teeth, but at least, you know… swallow.!!
 Determined to be the youngest champion of the CLEAN PLATE CLUB, you are only interested in shoveling whatever is on your tray into your mouth at great speed.  For this reason, you now have a designated “spotter” whenever you eat. A person whose entire job is to stare at your face and neck while you shovel this food in like a backhoe and watch for your face to turn purple. 

You want to take a step, but so far the thought of moving around on feet gives you the full blown giggles.  COME ON SWEETIE, Daddy will say from 12 inches away… WALK TO DADDY…. and you dissolve in a fit of giggles and eventually just tip forward, arms first, with the absolute knowledge that you will be caught safely on the other end.  I can only dream of such confidence and trust. 

So far, possible career choices include demolition (you knock everything down you can find), librarian (you play with books more than toys), parachute designer (you have an almost unnatural love and obsession with anything with straps or toggles or ropes) or possibly a doctor (a mother can dream….).

You still rip the glasses off anyone with the audacity to come near your hands while wearing them. You still rip everyone’s hair out by the roots.  You still give giant, sweet, slobbery kisses and smile so big your face splits in two. You still dance when a beat moves you – mostly by wagging your butt back and forth.  You give such knowing looks for your age…
You are so frustrated by the limitations of your little body…
You smell so good…

For all we have already been through, it blows my mind how much we have still to experience.  1 year is almost here, my sweet, and you know what? You got this.

Love,
Mommy

I was driving out to Canterbury just after breakfast last Sunday…  it about a 45 minute drive and it’s almost all “Minnesota Freeway” – meaning, well, pretty freeway.  Lots of trees and hills and birds and forestiness.  Nothing at all like most metro freeway drives that are all cold asphalt and bleak blacktop like I used to travel back in California. Sometimes I’m actually distracted by the sunshine and amazing blue skies…  I, like everyone else, have my beefs with Minnesota. Mostly I have something of a crush on this state and, given the opportunity, will gush effusively about its laundry list of wonderful qualities…

Right now, Minnesota looks like it’s getting ready for prom. It’s almost breathtakingly beautiful with all the trees turning vibrant colors and the geese honking overhead.  The air is so crisp, I want to bite it like an apple. The wind has its own constant conversation with itself.  Growing up in Arizona, the wind was a silent force that only revealed itself when dust-devils would form — when the wind became unstoppable.

In Minnesota, even the tiniest of breezes are evident in the rustling of leaves and spinning of whirligigs and swaying of branches.  Sometimes, I sit on my deck and just listen to the wind find its way through the branches and leaves on our trees and it almost sounds like waves lapping on a beach and I am tickled….I’m enchanted….  probably in part because I had a childhood almost completely devoid of trees and that little girl in me still feels like there must be something magical about trees.

So, I was driving to Canterbury… and I’m watching mile after mile of the patchwork quilt of colors that are the trees lining the road…  yellow, orange, brown, light green, gold, maroon, tangerine, purple, olive…. and way out, maybe a mile or more back from the road I can see one bright, amazing patch of bright red.  RED!  Like… like…. finding a cherry in your fruit cocktail when you are sure none are left!  Like finding the one red jellybean left under the grass in your basket with all the green and black unwanted ones…

Red!  How did one red tree grow there?  Nothing else red for miles.  Was it a mutation?  One lonely seed dropped by some visiting bird?

More importantly, is this tree included in the reindeer games?  Or is it ostracized by the others for its immodest beauty?

  Is it the popular tree?  The ring leader?

Do the other trees wear bracelets on their branches that say “WWRTD?”