A Chapter Ends

Baby, like her parents, will live for not quite two more days at her first home in Texas. Since moving from Rhode Island, she has gone from someone who could string together five or six wobbly steps to someone who can string together twenty-five or thirty. She has gone from being someone who was taken on walks around the block in her stroller to being someone who takes walks up and down the block on her own two feet. She has become an artist, merrily drawing with colored pencils and pens, and crying disconsolately when they are taken from her. She has seen the last days of life of one of her family dogs, and made a concerted effort to cheer up the surviving dog. She has gone for rides on the swings in the backyard; read fifteen or twenty books, fifteen or twenty times each. She has gone through the pain of molars coming in, and experienced the strength of being able to use them – even in their fledgeling form. Here, in this nondescript suburban house, she has taken her father by the finger and walked him around the corner and into the next room to see something she really wanted him to see – sometimes just the fact that the next room was there. She has eaten any number of new foods, most notably grapes. She has made stunning, important progress on the transition between being a true baby and a little girl, and I will treasure the memories of the times we have shared here.