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When Simone was about six months old, our doctor gave us the go to introduce solid foods. We gathered in anticipation as we set up the highchair, buckled her in, and presented her with her first ever her non breast milk/formula experience. Such a big moment!
She picked up the avocado (then later the banana, the sweet potato, the bagel) and gave it a thorough examination. She squished it in her little hands. She rubbed it all over her face, her chest and into her just washed hair. She threw it on the floor. Our dog Ace sniffed in eager curiosity.
But she did not really eat anything.
We tried again and again.
We offered her purées which were met with a similar lack of enthusiasm.
I read that the sensory experience of new foods was part of learning, and that even the throwing food on the floor was part of learning (just think: gravity). My mom reassured me that most everyone learns to eat just fine. But I was frustrated. I had to clean up this epic mess, and this epically messy baby, multiple times per day, and for what?
And then one day, something in her baby brain clicked. She still smeared whatever we gave her all over herself, but now some also made it into her mouth. And then a little more, and a little more. Now I’m proud to report that Simone is an eating pro. She loves oranges, hummus, yogurt, cheese, and ice cream (like her mom).
We learned to put food directly on her highchair’s tray—rather than in a bowl or a plate—so that she wouldn’t tip the whole thing over her head. But now she loves having her yogurt or her blueberries or her pasta in her own little bowl, and she maneuvers it quite well. (She still sometimes tips the whole thing over her head, but not nearly as often.)
Things change so fast.
Just about month ago, Simone took her first tentative, wobbly steps.
Now her favorite speed is fast, a near run, which makes watching her a very good workout.
She still looks a little drunk, but she’s quite adept an getting where she wants to go, at catching herself when she’s about to fall with a sort of course correction, and at getting up and brushing herself off like it’s no big deal at all when she does fall flat on her butt or face.
Wasn’t she just born about five minutes ago?
What is happening?
Sometimes the days seem punishingly, excruciatingly long.
And then I look at my little girl, her curls and mischievous smile and perfect little feet, and I think about how soon she is going to be a kid, and then a teenager, and then a grownup. It feels a bit dizzying.
It’s such a cliché: they grow up so fast, time flies, these moments are precious.
They are inarguably precious. They can be exhausting and frustrating and baffling. I’m trying to remember—in the thick of things—juggling a career and being a mom and a move and a pregnancy, just how precious-fast-precious-fast they are.
This too shall pass.
I don’t miss those hazy, lonely new mom days, but I do miss Simone sleeping on my chest, the fluff of her soft baby hair against my cheek. I miss strapping her into her carrier and heading for a walk, watching her long eyelashes flutter closed. Is it awful if I say I miss putting her down on her play mat for a few minutes and knowing she’d stay there?
I wish I could tell six-months-ago self: she will eat, and she will walk.
I’m so exhausted, and I’m so lucky.
We’re going to go sit in my parents’ pool on this hot day. Simone loves splashing. I love watching her joy. And sometimes, these days, she’s especially grumpy. Sometimes, I’m especially grumpy. That, too, shall pass.