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Thursday, May 26, 2011

There Will Be Crawling

It's almost impossible to live with a young baby and not be constantly reminded about how temporary she is. I often look at her now 7 month-old face, and I look for signs of the teenager, the young woman, the adult who will one day have strong opinions about politics or writing or fashion, or something else I can't imagine. I imagine what her face will look like, longer and more defined. I picture her taking a vacation for the first time by herself, or watching storms out over the ocean, or putting in enough hours to get her pilot's license, or deciding to grow her hair down to her shoulders. I see her realizing she's been stood up, being surprised with an anniversary gift, running for city council.

We take pictures and videos of her cutest moments, and we share them when we can. We put up with her furious storms of crying, knowing as she does not, that they will pass. We watch her change every single day, and we impatiently wait for her to reach the familiar milestones -- sitting up, crawling, standing, walking, teeth, first words, first foods.

But it's easy to be in a hurry to see her do these things, to forget that our impatience to see her develop is a way of hurrying her along her own temporality. And when she crawls for the first time, well, then she'll be a crawling baby. And she'll be different than she's been. And she won't ever crawl for the first time again.

For now, she's not crawling. But she's trying. Any day she'll do it. I will be excited. Really, I will. But also a little sad.

5 comments:

pattycuyler said...

Chris this blog makes me SOOOO happy!

Nita Sweeney said...

Adorableness - all of you.

wakes1977 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wakes1977 said...

So funny, I was reading the Times and your name (and link) popped up. I thought no, but then the age and description seemed like it might be you.

Hope everything is going well, you still have fond memories of City Year and the Honda team, and know your munchkin really is quite adorable.

We're in Chicago, with a four-year-old and munchkin on the way :)

All my best - Heather (Wakefield) Cohen

Christopher Michel said...

Hey there office twin! wow! So it feels weird to be talking on the comments section of my blog -- a bit like trying to catch up on stage or something. Shoot me an actual email, and let's catch up. I'm christopher dot j dot michel at the gmail.