Heart on Legs

You walked yesterday. You were kind of like Dumbo with his magic feather and just forgot that you couldn't do it all on your own and took off! Then you immediately sat down. I tried to coax you into doing a little more of it, but mostly, we had a game that involved you speed crawling across the living room and giggling like a maniac while I darted away from you and tried to get you to walk back to me. But that's not why I'm writing.

I'm writing because you're in your chair, eating your lunch. You have peanut butter all over your face and hands and cup and tray, so much that you just stopped drinking for a minute to lick your cup. Your little eyes are heavy-lidded because you didn't take much of a nap this morning and all this thinking about walking has worn you out. Your jammies are fuzzy at the knees from crawling. You're singing "Mom-me, Mom-me, Mom-me" over and over to your peanut butter cracker and smiling like you're lit with a 100-watt bulb and idly dabbing peanut butter on the arms of the windsor chair. It's been a pretty typical day so far, an ordinary "same old, same old" day, I suppose - oatmeal with jam and playing and wrestling on the couch - and about twenty stories, including five readings of Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! But I am writing this to tell you that I am so incredibly in love with you and your messiness and your noise and your dirty jammies and your deep love for just one book at a time. And I wanted you to know....