You’re not supposed to compare your children. Or so I’ve been told. But I do. All the time!
From tantrums to nap/bedtimes routines to getting her to eat vegetables to getting her to NOT get into
every cupboard and drawer, and potty training!
But there are still aspects of our experience with Cyrus that inform our experience with Eliana.
And in the other direction too! Learning to entertain Cyrus based on what Eliana enjoys. She’s so
responsive and I’ve learned what works and I find myself using the same techniques with Cyrus, and
he responds!
Or she’s a toddler so she just likes repetition. We were watching this alphabet phonics video. Elli
ALWAYS wants to watch this one video. Not because she likes the video, but because the thumbnail
has a zebra on it. She always points to it, and says zebra! But it’s the alphabet (apple to zebra), so the
zebra doesn’t show up for awhile, and she always gets mad around monkey wanting and starts crying
for zebra!
So I finally got wise and just started it at w for window! Then we got to the zebra really fast. Only to learn
that the yellow and the zebra are the ONLY parts of the video she wants to watch. It’s like a 20 second
segment. So we rewatch that same part over and over and over. And it does not get old. She is giggling
at the yellow zebra just as much during round seven as during round two.
But at round seven, Cyrus started laughing, too. And I’m like, huh!
And it’s just awe.
She held her head up better on the day that she was born than he ever has in his entire life. It felt
magical.
Reaching for things, pointing at things, climbing on things, feeding herself, saying actual words, singing
songs! Telling me about fish in the sky (you know, the long slender silver things with fins on either sides
and tails traveling through a giant blue expanse?! She’ll tell you it’s a fish!! And who am I to argue?) or
imitating the sounds of a neighbor’s sheep (it was a bird, but it was definitely making a baa sound. She
was excited and wanted to go see the sheep!)
Magical! All of it! And the first time she does anything new I’m crying. Every single time. It doesn’t fade. I
don’t get used to it. Every tiny little thing she learns is awe inspiring.
Like how does she even do all this?! She has super powers!! Like she’s never seen a fish in real life!
And she came up with a pretty accurate concept!
I’m telling you, super powers!
There’s a downside to this. I never want to stop her.
She’s jumping on the couch?
She’s jumping!
And not just jumping. She’s pulling her legs up to her waist at the height of her jump so that she’ll fall
further and faster. So that she’ll actually bounce! She giggles when she does so. It’s the best sound.
Why would I interrupt that?! There’s a hardwood floor in front of her or a sharp pointy thing on the
ground (that she left there). It doesn’t matter. She’s a bonafide wizard doing magic right now!!
Yeah, yeah, I do want her to stick around long enough to keep being a wizard, to keep blowing my world
out of orbit. I suppose I will have to teach her that it’s not safe to jump on the couch.
She calls the long silver things in the sky airplanes now. I’m a bit sad about this. But sometimes when
she’s with me she’ll call it an airplane first and then excitedly squeal “fish!” And then she’ll watch me.
And I will laugh, and only then will she follow suit. And it was like she knows it’s not a fish. (Somehow!
How did she correct her misconception so fast?!) She doesn’t do this with anyone else. It’s like she’s
saying it only because she knows it will make me laugh.
And that just makes me want to cry.
(Forget want! I was crying as I wrote that sentence).
For the best reasons in the world.
I don’t know really what it’s like to experience a child meeting milestones when you don’t have a Cyrus
informing that experience. These things are amazing in their own right and because I know what it
means to not be able to do them.
I know that not every family out there has a Cyrus to teach you that these little things are flat out
miracles. But I’m telling you, and hoping you will take my word for it - they are.
And we are grateful.
