On Returning to Clio

After all of my Saturday-night bravura, Sunday morning dawned a little bit sad. Not only was I leaving Marni and Sara, but I would not make it back to my baby girl until after her bed time. Suddenly those 6 hours on a plane seemed like an utter waste.

We were reunited this morning, when I went in to get her up for the day. I was concerned that Clio might take the negative track in responding to my return, acting out in anger when she "remembered" that she had been "abandoned" for a couple of days. Happily, she was all positive, kicking around excitedly in her crib in her haste to get up and give me a big, delicious, full-body toddler hug.

I was away for four days, a relative blink of the eye for a 33-year old. For a toddler, though, that's a long time, and I must admit I am surprised by how different she seems to me now. Maybe it has to do with how quickly they develop at this age, making her seem just a bit older. But she also seems changed, somehow. She doesn't look quite as utterly familiar to me, but maybe this is like going on a rustic vacation and finding surprise in your reflection when you finally look in a mirror after days without. She also sounds a little different- partly just the tone of her voice, but maybe also the fact that, somewhere this weekend, she picked up the habit of saying "yup" instead of "yes"- to everything. It feels like the baby equivalent of a 'tween suddenly taking on the slang and cadences of teenagerhood.

Most startling of all: she got a little braver. After daycare, we went to the playground at the school down the street, and for the first time that I'm aware of, she went right down the slide with no coaxing or hand-holding. She figured out how to walk across the "drawbridge," holding onto the rail, rather than scooting backwards or crawling as she has previously done. She went up steps on her feet instead of her knees. She even tried the ladder. By the end of our time, she had tried out the big slide countless times, both on her bottom and her belly, and I had to refrain from telling her not to walk up the small slide- of course, I don't want her to fall, but there's no way I'm discouraging the new adventuress in her.

I hate to think that my influence is too sheltering, but it's interesting that this new physical adventurousness would blossom the first time I left her. Or, actually, perhaps more positively, the first time I returned. I could read any number of things into this, but for now, I think I'll just be glad that she decided to take these leaps of faith on her own.