13 Months (Part 2)

I think that Quinn is learning how to talk before she even learns how to walk. Even though she's already taken a couple of tentative steps across the living room, she still spends most of her time crawling across the floor. She moves fast, zipping around on all fours and she can navigate the entire length of the house cruising from one item to the next but she hasn't pushed herself to master the art of staying upright upon her cute little feet. But, just the other day as I was changing her clothes, she reached out and grabbed a book and said, "Bujook", while smiling at me with accomplishment. Then she reached out and pulled her soft little blanket to her chest and shouted, "Got it!", to me.

Any time of the day, Xtimu and I will stop whatever we're doing at the moment and listen to Lucas and Quinn in the other room. Lucas will often tell Quinn a story or sing her a song and she's right there interacting with him. Many times these sounds are not recognizable in any language other than her own but she's very obviously trying to communicate along with him. She does that all of the time with all of us, vocalizing her wants and desires with effective results.

I remember when Lucas was just a few months old and my cousin's daughter was about a year older than him. We were at some family "fun"ction and her little girl was talking and pointing out all of the beautiful things in the world with accurate inflection. I was astounded that a fifteen month old child would be saying words so clearly. Well, it turned out that she had a sister who was about three years older than her. Since the older sister was constantly talking and interacting with her younger sister, it was helping the little girl's ability to talk. It was just a theory but there must be something to it because I don't remember Lucas communicating like this when he was only thirteen months old.

It's very interesting to see the different way that each child develops. Quinn is so advanced in many ways in comparison to the way that Lucas developed at the same age. That could be simply because she's a completely different person naturally or that she has the advantage of learning from a three-year-old who just went through everything that she's going through so that he can provide some child insight of which we are unaware. But then there are other areas of her growth that seems to lag behind what I recall of Lucas at the time. Xtimu always says that each child has their own path and that's true to an extent for all of us. We each have certain aspects of learning that we excel at and others that are more difficult to grock. Each of us as unique as a snowflake.

It's so beautiful to watch your children develop into the snowflake that will eventually fall to earth. Right now, they have the freedom to float around at whim and enjoy life with a childish enthusiasm. Eventually they'll become grounded, developing into more mature adults but at such young ages they're crystallizing with incredible beauty and love. In a way it's a shame that we lose some of that beauty when we become adults and one of the aspects of Xtimu that I always admired about her was a sense of joie de vivre that was in her heart. Now that I see it in our children, I can feel it blossoming in my life as well. I've commented endlessly about how we, as parents, learn just as much from our children as they can learn from us and this is just one more way that I feel that to be true. I hope, with each month that leads to another year in their lives, that I can hold this truth deep within my heart so that my own precious wings of ice will expand further into a beautiful design that provides inspiration for others in much the same way that my children provide inspiration for me.