Benjamin Penguin

Dear Benjamin –

Ok, so there are only so many times that I can apologize for the same thing. The letter? It’s late. The truth is, I don’t really like being this busy, though I am equally unhappy when I have absolutely nothing to do. My perfect level of activity rests somewhere between where I am now and where I was when I was staying home with you all day. Like, if I could just work and hang with you, that would be great. Or just go to school and hang with you, that would also be great. But the work and the school AND the hanging with you? Not so great. Because while I am doing one thing, I am always fretting about the two things that I am neglecting. So I attempted to sit down a number of times over the past few weeks and write this letter to you and then the nagging guilt of that oft-neglected literature review welled to the surface and I spent far too many hours sulking over a spreadsheet as I endeavored to think up all the ways the term “service utilization” might be represented in academic journals. Yes, it is as lame as it sounds.

But that’s ok. Since this is a busy time, I am giving myself license to make this letter a little shorter than usual. In part this is because it is already midnight and if I don’t go to sleep soon I am just going to start speaking in tongues. More importantly, though, it is because there is really only one thing that I want to talk about. I think that every mother has this thing that she cannot wait for her child to finally do. For me, this thing was walking. I can’t explain exactly why I was looking forward to this as much as I was, but I’ll certainly try. I think it has to do with the fact that I am itching to have you explore the world with me. This newfound ability to place your one little foot in line with the other in a pattern that resembles actual walking suggests to me that we are now closer than not to this little daydream of mischievous adventure-seeking that I have been cherishing for months now.

I love to watch you walk. It brings me such joy that I instantly smile when I recall an image of you walking from earlier in the day. I love the slapping sound of your little fat feet as they make their way across the wood floors and the perilous wobble as you struggle to remain upright. I love the way you hold your arms up in the air for balance and the look of pure elation on your face as you make your way slowly towards me. I love that you reach out to grab my hands and lead me in some direction that seems fascinating to you. I love that we finally had to buy you a little pair of shoes and that we put these little shoes on your little fat feet when we go outside to take in the sights and sounds of an unexpectedly sunny and warm almost-Spring day.

I can recall so many occasions when you were younger and crawling about when strangers would make comments on how I would be thankful for those crawling days once you were walking. I would nod my head and say something noncommittal because I am polite but had no desire to engage them in conversation. But the truth is, every time a stranger expressed this platitude, I would smile knowingly on the outside, but on the inside I was counting down the days until this happened. The crawling was neat, as it made you that much more interactive than when you were simply rolling to and fro. But the walking! It’s MY indication that you are growing and changing and maturing in amazing ways. Once you learned that you could take my hand so that I could help you walk, you learned that you could take my hand to help you do many things. Now, when you can’t quite get something or can’t quite reach something, you take my hand and move it in the direction of what you want. It is such an obvious display of connection between us that I am sometimes smacked silent by how incredible it makes me feel. You must be reaching the age of the heretofore unknown baby of my daydreams – that little toddler promise that I would daydream about before I was even pregnant with you. There is such familiarity and bliss in the experience of these new skills of yours that I must have dreamt of them dozens of times, must have seen myself holding your little hand as I walk next to you or running my fingers through your incredibly soft and fine curly hair as you sit between my legs on the floor thumbing through a book. Indeed there is something magical about this age that I am just drawn to: the rapidness with which you acquire new abilities, the gentle independence that has you moving forward two steps away from me and then back two steps in hasty retreat to hug my legs in your arms, the surprising moments of tenderness as you lay next to me on the bed and pat my arm with your hand.

There are moments like today, when I am calm and relaxed and centered in my world, when I remember to stop and thank the universe for bringing you to me. When I stretch out on the floor with my arms and legs extended alongside me and the sun’s rays warming my face and I can hear you in the other room laughing with your Daddy and I think to myself that there is nowhere in the world that I would rather be and no people in the world I would rather be with.

Love,

Mama