Baby Development

One of the Daily 10 with Innovate Your Baby is to “Take your Baby Outside” and we do that as often as we can.  My little AJ has learned to love the outdoors almost as much as I do.  While she is no longer an infant, she still isn’t quite 2 years old.  Yesterday, while we were playing outside, I got the most beautiful Mother’s Day present early.

We had been playing (and working) outside for about an hour.  AJ picked the not-quite-ripe blueberries, said “blueberries” and ate them.  “You try, Momma?”  She negotiated her way through the tunnel that the asparagus rows make.  She ate some dirt before I could stop her, and she smelled the fragrant peonies and patted the buds like she pats her dogs and cats.  While I was pulling weeds and thinking about all of the things I needed to get done that day, she found her ball and was kicking it around.  When she disappeared around the corner, I followed her and we played ball for a while before she ran into a chair and started crying.  She asked for “warm milk” which is her term for breast milk and what she wants when she gets hurt.   We sat down on the patio and AJ had warm milk.  She was more startled than hurt, but for a little person, that’s enough to need reassurance.

It was a calm morning and about 70 degrees.  As I held AJ, I watched a momma goose and her babies swimming around the pond.  I gazed at the lovely purple, yellow and pink of the iris and peonies.  Our little cat Missy joined us on the loveseat and our big cat Simba sat under the table.  It was very quiet and peaceful.  I thought for a minute about the long list of work I had to do both for the business and for our home.  Then, I looked at my sweet little girl with her arm around me and her eyelids starting to flutter.  I knew I had a short window to try to get her up the hill, into the house, and in her bed for the nap.  Then, I thought about all the years I had tried to have a baby and couldn’t.  I remembered how much I had longed to have a little son or daughter in my life and how I dreamed of moments just like this one.  AJ’s eyes were now closed and she was breathing slowly and peacefully.  I pulled my coat up over her and decided to stay right where I was.  This moment would never come again.  I enjoyed watching a pair of great blue herons flying over the trees and the lakes.  I listened to meadowlarks, swallows and robins singing their spring songs.  I smiled as a pair of swallows flew really close to us trying to let us know that we were too close to the nest that they build every year by the patio.  I kept looking at the sleeping face of my little girl and it warmed my heart beyond description.  I realized that moments like these are the best part of life but that we miss them so often because we don’t take them.  We all have so much to do every day.

AJ (and Missy and Simba) and I stayed there  for over an hour with AJ sleeping peacefully nestled up against me.  I soaked up the feeling of being with my little daughter and the wonderful peaceful setting.  After a while, AJ began to stir and then looked up at me with her huge blue green eyes.   It was the best Mother’s Day present I could ever have imagined.

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