It continually freaks everyone in my mother’s group out that all our babies are 11 months old. Just one month shy of the Grand Milestone: the First Birthday. I vaguely remember carting Arddun around in cafes when she was as light as a feather, and looking at 11-month-old babies lolling about their highchairs and scoffing their grubby faces with their fat little grubby hands, and thinking, “Geez! They’re HUGE! I can’t imagine Arddun getting that huge! And I really like her this tiny. Please stay this tiny, Little Arddun.”
But then, she went ahead and thrived and grew. And time marched on. And suddenly we’re here. She’s eleven months old. Almost a year. And she’s huge. And bizarrely, even cuter.
What can I say about Month Eleven? She’s walking. Sorta. On carpet, she goes quite far on foot – perhaps to avoid carpet burn on the knees. But on tile, she walks two steps before she drops to her padded, dimpled knees and crawls away to whatever fascinating toy that has caught her fancy. Usually something plastic that makes a loud clackety-clack noise on tile when you drop it repeatedly.
She has her own timing, that girl. She tells you in her own way that she’ll walk when she’s ready. You know that thing where you try to hold her up by her hands so that her legs hang down and her feet touch the floor? And then you try to “walk” her by standing over her and holding on to her hands? She’s onto you like a snap. She turns her knees to jelly. Just keeps buckling her knees, so there is no way you can keep her upright. And her body? Also jelly. Suddenly, she’s invertebrate, and she keeps at it till you let go and she slithers to the floor before gleefully – GLEEFULLY – crawling away.
The girl has her own timing, the girl.
And her hair has gotten long. First, she looked like Kramer with her hair all standing. Then she looked like a little old man with a receding hairline. But now, her hair’s grown over her ears and she’s starting to look sweet. Feminine even. I’m wondering if it’s coincidence that she hasn’t been mistaken for a boy in the last month since her hair’s grown over her ears. But perhaps it has more to do with the fact that I dress her in cute stockings and pinafore dresses.
And black, shiny, patent leather Mary Janes. Don’t forget the Mary Janes.
And finally – Grey’s Anatomy.
For some reason, she adores the plinky-plonky of the song they play in the end credits. Because as soon as it comes on, she stops whatever she’s doing and stares at the screen. There’s this tiny giggle, like “Hey! It’s my song!” And then she starts to groove.
Don’t believe me? Watch.
Finding The Happy 