tumbledry

Stuff from September, 2015

This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on September, 2015.

Late Summer

There is so much I have experienced but haven’t written down since I last posted here. Let’s get to it.

Ess had four shots (one in each limb) and we confirmed at her regularly scheduled doctor visit that she is a healthy young lady.
She took her first step on September 12, but still prefers crawling. She loves the letter “B” and when we change her she finds the two big “B”s on the wall of her room (they spell BABY) and says “buh.” She finds our belly buttons. She honks my nose and I say “hoooonk” like a fog horn. Then she honks her own. She knows “moon” and says “mooOOon” with the ‘n’ on the end dropped to near silence. She’s getting so much better at sitting in her high chair at meals and eating with us. She saw the beginning of the very rare super moon total solar eclipse! The next one will be when she is 19 years old. 19! I can’t even imagine. Ess still loves planes: she never misses the chance to search for and point at one when she hears it in the sky. As such, when she and Mykala came to visit me over lunch at Eagan today, she marveled at the veritable stream of airplanes lifting off from MSP into the air over our blanket in the park. She dances. She hugs the cat and rests her head on him, delighted to catch him before he trots off.

Continued

Intensity

A startling, yet simple realization this morning: someday, somewhere, someone is going to be mean, or condescending, or hateful to our Ess. I don’t know, can’t know, can’t guard against when; and the circumstances around such a thing are impossible to anticipate, infinite in variety. And what’s more, apprehension and concern from me are neither beneficial nor constructive. So that will be tucked away. My job, then, is to love Ess into being, to (someday sooner than I want to admit) rest my hands on her shoulders and look her in the eye and tell her I’ll see her at home again, before she travels places I can not follow and takes risks from which I can not protect her.

Continued