Delight

Every once in a while, I have the distinct pleasure of spending a lot of time with Clio, and then going away, so that when I return it is to discover her again. This happens in magnitudes of scale: our Christmas break was 10 days of pretty much all Clio, all the time, followed by a weekend of wedding activity and a return to work, leaving Clio almost solely in Dave's care for nearly a week. I found myself amazed by her for most of our long weekend together, and then, in a small way, again tonight after just one full day at work.

I also realize that there hasn't been a huge focus on Clio on the blog recently, but right now I'm just so amazed and in love with her. There are so many things to notice, new things that she seems to have learned overnight:

her desire to dress herself (or to dress her "babies" and "animals" in Clio clothes) and her fascination with zippers ("Clio zip Mommy!"); her ever-growing ability to communicate (requests for "desitin" and "powder" during a diaper change; the sometimes annoying "I don't want that" for just about every food we put in front of her); her fascination with "garbage," and picking up tiny little pieces of things to deposit in the can; her desire to help- pick up crayons, unload the groceries- and the converse instinct to knock down block towers as they are being created, and to empty and fill containers, and then empty them again; her new ability to turn things on and off, like the "electric" guitar she loves to dance to; her desire to do things "again" and "again" as she figures them out; and most of all, I love the joy with which she does many of these things, and the delight she clearly takes in having her world open up to her with every new skill and word she learns.

I also love watching her with Dave. Today I had a rare, great super-mom kind of a day, productive at work, home in time to make dinner, food in the oven in time to put Clio down; and while I cooked, I overheard them in the living room. Dave testing her on her counting (in Spanish and English), teaching her the names of tools (she seems to know "Hammer" - I'm not totally clear on the rest) and going over the "Farm" page of her First Words book ("Tractor," "Combine Harvester"). Marni said recently that she loves how matter-of-fact I am with Clio; I wondered aloud how else would I be? But I love that Dave is even more so; she may be just 18 months old, but of course she should be counting, or saying her alphabet, or learning Combine Harvester, his simple actions imply. And you know what: why not? She seems to love this time they are spending together, and she's certainly learning a lot.

She seems like such a big girl all of a sudden, don't you think?