A Good Age

So The Baby is sitting on the couch, crammed in between big sisters, watching Jane and the Dragon, looking so cute small pieces of my heart instantly begin to liquefy and disappear the moment I set eyes on her. She’s so enthralled in the show and clearly blissful, hangin’ with the Big Dawgs, that I almost hesitate to disturb her.

Almost. But not quite.

I call her name. No reply. Louder. Nothing. The dragon’s got her but good and who can blame her? Can I really compete with such a wingéd, scaléd green beast?

I try again and this time she looks up. I make the sign for “car,” and she beams, hops down off the couch.

The earth’s rotation wavers slightly from the sheer beauty of her in motion.

I make the sign for shoes—I don’t want The Boy to know it's her turn to go with me so this is my attempt at stealth, the fact that he prolly couldn’t hear me shouting at her to get her shoes notwithstanding—and she chortles and trots off in search of sneakers, coming back lickety-split, footwear in hand, and if they’re not from the same pair, who’s to care? With the first kid, such things are of paramount importance, that folks understand you’re a Good Parent with a Well-Presented Child. By the fifth kid you’re impressed with yourself if the young’un makes it out of the house with all ten toes.

[Note to self: remember to count children's toes tomorrow.]

So we stop by the liberry and return a Foo Fighters disc and some Shakespeare plays on CD and pick up Branagh’s Henry V and as usual the folks there are delighted to see The Baby (or Senator Smoosh, as she’s usually called ‘round these here parts—Smooshie to her friends and mother). Then it’s off to the grocery store, where the senator's her usual enchanting self, pointing at things with wide-eyed wonder, captivated by the undeniable glory that is the frozen food section.

So we finish up and I’m pushing the cart through the parking lot and I ask her, “Hey, where’s our car?” I’ve never asked her that before and it’s dark, so I’m not really expecting her to answer or even understand me, but she starts looking around. I push the cart past the car without stopping, just, you know, testing her, as is my wont with the female persuasion. And she spots our automobile and yells, “Ah!” as though she’s started by its sudden appearance.

Which makes me laugh. Which makes her laugh, possibly because she construed my laughter as a sign of recognition of her incredible brilliance. As I’m fairly convinced she is, in fact, the next step in human evolution, I have no problem with her taking it that way. But her laughter makes me laugh harder. Which makes her laugh harder. Which makes me laugh harder.

So there we are, in a cold, drizzly parking lot at 5:30 at night, laughing hysterically at each other.

And from two feet away a voice says, “It’s a good age, isn’t it?” Which startles the bejeebers out of me.

I look up and there’s a guy sitting in the car next to ours, his window down. What he must have thought of our little bout of temporary insanity I can’t even guess.

But I agree, “Yeah, it is.” It's funny, whenever anyone uses that phrase, I always think of what my brother Ler Pete once told me years back, how he learned even before he had kids of a surefire way to start a conversation with a parent, any parent. Ask ‘em how old the kid is and then nod amiably and say, “Wow. That’s a great age, isn’t it?” He pointed out that it never fails. And indeed it don’t. So far, at least.

In this case, of course, it’s true, although every one of the good senator’s ages have been damn ducky and then some.

The car guy says, “What is she, about a year and a half? Yeah, I could tell. That’s how old my granddaughter is. Her mom’s got a master’s degree and her dad’s got his PhD and they just read books about babies and parenting all the time, just tons and tons of books. Yeah, you’re not really allowed to do anything with the baby or give anything to her; she’s not really allowed to do anything. She pretty much just cries all the time.”

I made a sympathetic sound. “Their first kid?” I guessed. He nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “They’ll learn.”

Comments

[Becky]

Lissa was right, that was beautiful.

When my eldest (now 10) was about a year old, a friend (more experienced by a couple of years) once told me after watching my Perfect Child do something cute and brilliant, "You know, it just keeps getting better."

And I really appreciated that, especially when the usual comments tend more toward the "Just wait 'til the terrible twos", as though there needs to be some cosmic payback for "the good age".

Maybe if more parents had more fun with their little ones, the little ones would be even more fun and the parents would want to keep them near instead of off-loading them at the nearest daycare center. Maybe.

[sashwee]

beautiful story enjoyed and advice heeded

[Karen Edmisten]

They *are* all good ages ... 1 (which I don't get to have anymore) and 5 and 11 and 14 ... there's something so wonderfully good about all of them.

Beautiful story, beautiful moment!

[Julie Bogart]

Yep, great age. Great story. I love to talk to parents of little ones. It's nice to be at the age where I can be the voice of "enjoy, relax, and they'll turn out" - the voice I listened to when we raised our little ones.

[Abigail]

Wow! I loved this post! That part about leaving the house with the non-matching shoes made me smile. As the mother of three, I'm still learning how to loosen up with things like that. Like the lady with the master's degree, "I'll learn!"