There are so many moments when I find myself shuffling through words, trying to deal a hand that adequately describes a wondrous moment in this experience. But how to describe the singular joy of sitting in your own [hard-won] backyard in the glorious September sunshine while your lovely daughter romps naked in the grass, her little round cheeks popping in and out of the pool, her face obscured by a wide purple sun hat? The small joys of her holding out her hand to you to help her navigate the steep stairs - the first of her young life. All these moments which I am trying to tuck away and remember because I can see already how they so quickly turn into thin memories, mere shadows of the real experiences.
Nahanni continues to grow and flourish and her capacity for learning astounds me daily. Her grasp of language, her ability to wrap her little tongue around even the most difficult sounds is yet another of the wonders of this stage of life. She is proving to be very adept at language and plucks words from her brain like rabbits from a hat - they are that magical. She moved rapidly from the early words I was so impressed by and has largely left her signing behind in the wake of the myriad new words she has gained. The other day while running around the yard ('gwass!') she held up a fallen leaf and exclaimed 'Leaf! Hoja! Tree!' - and she continues to pick up words in French and Spanish both. She has even begun the rudiments of sentences and is able to repeat things you say days after you've done so. One of her new favourites is 'Do that! Carpet! No! No, no no! Cat!' - which is basically me yelling at the cats to stop ripping at the carpets. She works hard on her words, correcting herself until her little tongue massages the 'L' back into little, or sleep. I can tell she loves to speak, it thrills her to communicate.
She has developed a great fondness for the creatures that inhabit the yard and is particularly interested in spiders. Only a week ago she would call out 'PI-lo!' which was so cute - we still find ourselves randomly calling it out the way she did. It has already morphed into 'Pider' and she also now says 'web' and blows into the air, copying the way I always blow into the webs to see if the spider is alive or dead. The other day Ez heard her approach 'Daddy! Piller!' and she was holding a terrified little caterpillar in her outstretched hand. We are trying to foster a confidence in her when it comes to the creepy crawlies that are inevitable parts of the outdoors and she is remarkably at ease with them - even the yellow-jackets we can't seem to get rid of. She will say 'hurt you!?' and we say no, that they will leave her alone if she leaves them and so she doesn't panic when they buzz around her.
It is a wonderful thing to go into her bedroom in the morning to hear what words will be the first to open the torrent that continues throughout the day. After the recent spate of falling and bloody lips we gave her a popsicle (and do you know how hard it is to find real fruit popsicles?) she latched onto both the word and the treat and for days it was the first word out of her mouth in the morning - although that first day I walked in and she said this: "Taco. [what!?] Paco. Pocklo. Poklico. Popsliko." I mean, she worked hard on that one!
It has been a trial, coming to own this house, but oh, what a wondrous thing it is to have a home! We marvel at it daily, this mansion of ours (after 6 years in 726 square feet it is a mansion). We even climbed up onto the roof to survey our little kingdom, with its gorgeous maple and magnolia trees sweeping romantically across the front path, and our own apple tree scattering fruit across our yard. Every night we build a beautiful fire in the hearth and I step out at dusk each evening to sneak across the street and stare at it. I love the romance of the front yard, the way the trees arch over the path and dapple across the lights - it truly looks like the most romantic and mysterious little place. I love the newly painted red door and mailbox, the crazy sign the previous owner made on the lawn that lights up our address in the night (one of many quirky little oddities that drew us to this house). I love the smell of cedar burning in the hearth, that heady, woody scent we used to only get on our camping adventures. And there is nothing quite like entering into the great room, with its high vaulted ceiling and the great Indian mantlepiece, red candles flickering everywhere. It is especially welcome after the clinical (and clinically depressing) whitewalls of the recent open house nightmare. I hadn't realized how much personality had been sucked out of our living space until I began to put it back into this one. What glory to live in colour again! For me, colour is bliss...
I love watching my child learn and explore here. I feel genuinely blessed to have a real home for her, a real yard. I love the quirks of this strange and unique home and it is a great relief after the trauma of buying it that we love it as we hoped. I love that my daughter is learning to walk on those red-hued stairs, awash in the slatted light that falls from the Chinese-style back door. I love watching her 'hiding!' in the branches of our very own willow tree. It is the right home for us - interesting, unique - and far from perfect. We feel very lucky indeed.
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