Growing

R toddles around carrying things: books, various pieces of clothing, cameras, toys. She throws them at me, laughing, eyes gleaming because she knows she's being naughty. She growls at Umberto, holding up a plastic white tiger. She is busy these days. She has a duty to walk into each room to check out what is going on with various people. And as she walks away from me, I remember, not necessarily fondly, how she used to cry if she crawled into another room. Now she is pushing boundaries, walking away from me to be elsewhere with other people.

Now that she is one, she is becoming more and more a separate person. Not as much part of me as she used to be when she was tiny and I wore here everywhere. Her personality is growing along with her body. Each day we learn new things about her. We have learned that she has a sense of humor. She likes to tease people. She likes books. She likes to play with her siblings but really hates it when they're on the video. She loves music and she likes to clap.  And I marvel at what we already know with the knowledge that there is so much more. These ever unfolding folds of knowing a person, like flower petals peeled back again and again.

I waver back and forth between sad and over joyed. There is always a twinge of sadness to each moment as she gets bigger. There is no longer the tiny baby that we hold close. The one who smells like creation. But how can one mourn when there is the joy of energy that fills her movements and discoveries. She is like a new beginning over and over.

After she destroys the book basket, spills a glass of water, rips the wires out of the back of the computer, explores the depths of the container cupboard, she comes back to me. She holds out chubby arms until I scoop her into my lap, and she nestles into me. She nurses, her huge eyes gazing up at me, and we both sink into the wave.