The house is a wreck and it’s stressing me out, but the sky outside is crisp and clean and blue with November sunshine, so I pull your high chair over to the window. Between mouthfuls of Gerber pureed carrot you watch the shadows of the trees dancing on the fence. You keep glancing back at me as if to say, Are you seeing this?! The world is so cool!
Babies sort of force a person to live in the present.
You smile at me with those chubby cheeks and duck down hair, and emit a squeal that makes the cat turn her head lazily from her sunny spot on the floor. We haven’t gotten very many chores done today, and I’m not sure what we’ll eat for dinner, and speaking of eating I hope I’m introducing you to enough solid foods to keep your development going on a good timeline, and what if –
But I can’t worry about that right now, because you’re leaning toward me without taking your eyes off the outdoors, mouth wide open for another bite. When I slip the spoon in you hum loudly, MMMMM. You like carrots, apparently. That’s probably a good sign.
“Ba ba ba DA,” you announce, banging both hands on the tray table. You smile with orange lips when I laugh at you, then do it again. You like making us laugh. A few more drumbeats on your tray, and then you stop abruptly to stare at the spoon and hum aggressively. MMMMM. More.
Right now, all you want is this, sitting in our messy kitchen, making your mama laugh, another bite of carrot whenever it occurs to you.
Right now, I’ll try to just want this.
The Grammar Changeling 