Avery at 1 (and a bit)

An exhaustive photographic retrospective of our first year together? There are already far more pictures of you than there are of me in the world. I wouldn’t know how to choose. And I’ve been trying for months.

Or pages of waxing poetic on how you’ve changed my world? How do I quantify that in just a few pages?

I mean, this blog used to cover more than a growing little girl, but now it’s 99% bunny. And I love my wife very much. And I couldn’t ask for a better job or people to work with. New York has been good to me. Yet when I sit down with a few spare minutes to blog, I gravitate to that little ball of sugary fire as sure as the sun comes up every day. And I know it comes up every day because Avery inevitably wakes us up at sunrise. All of which is to say that my life is full, and really good, and I still can’t seem to blog about much else. Avery Peppermint – winner of the blog.

Let’s see. She started walking on her own at around 11 months so she’s a veteran now. She took herself off bottles long before that. She’s been eating almost everything we eat for about as long. Except salad and chunks of meat. She only just got an upper pair of grinders to match the lower pair, so she’ll make up for missing out. She usually likes broccoli but is hit and miss with potatoes. Loves her pasta. She’s actually pretty good with food. She’ll try anything at least once. Marjorie has done an incredible job there. Avery has recently conquered the door handles and she loves the elevator so it’s only a matter of time before I’m urgently calling the front desk for an emergency roundup. Luckily so far it’s more a bedroom door game of demanding someone knock on the door so she can answer it (and close it, ad infinitum). She loves climbing. She loves the swing and the slide. She loves a new physical challenge and will become, if not obsessed, at least utterly distracted by it until the next challenge comes along. Going up stairs – nearly conquered. Going down – she still reaches for a steadying hand. Every bath time she worked on the power button of her little starfish fountain toy until she could make it stay on, which took some dexterity, leverage and strength. Amazing. She loves peekaboo and high fives. She hugs back, and if you don’t mind the wide open mouth, she’s good for the occasional kiss too. She knows more words than I can count, many of them animals. Ask her what a lion sounds like and she will roar. Owls get an “oo oo”. Still working on the cow’s moo, though. Just a big, “mmm”. And a dog never gets more than a “fff”. The monkey, mind you, always gets an enthusiastic Curious George hoot and holler. Not sure what she’s after with the cat sound. I have to wonder if she’s stepped on cats more than once when no one’s looking. Books! She loves (loves) books, and insists on several reading times per day. Ask her to pick a book and she will. And when you ask her to pick which of the three she wants first, she’ll give it a poke. Interestingly, she picks them in descending order of energy. Green Eggs and Ham first, Time for Bed last. After pointing out the Canada flag to her, she unfailingly points it out right back. She finds the little ladybug on the pages, or the mouse, or the caterpillar, or the moon, all faster than you can. And though we try to keep it to a minimum, she knows which remotes will get her to Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, if not which actual buttons to push. If you mention the recycling room, she wants to know what she gets to carry. Mention the park and she toddles off for her shoes and jacket. She knows the hand signs for food, more, please, thank you, milk, water, train, and helicopter. And more.

Yet somehow when she shrieks for nothing more than the love of the sound of her own voice, and you ask her to be quiet, she doesn’t catch your meaning. She’s wily, that one.

And the effect she’s had on me. To the core. Nobody’s parents ever told us about the constant base-line terror. I have a vivid imagination, so I can imagine a few thousand things a day that would do irreparable harm to my little girl. Marjorie used to cringe whenever I took Avery out onto the deck (we’re on the 28th floor), and even though I had complete confidence in her safety there is always that darkest corner of your mind. The one that makes the reasonable and logical argument that the brain is a mysterious thing, and I could have a sudden seizure, and Avery could catapult out of my arms and over the railing.

Or we’ll be walking down the hall to the recycling room, I’ll turn the corner first, and she’ll zip into the elevator. And then no one can find her. And the seconds stretch into minutes and I cannot canNOT allow the thought to continue.

Or she takes a spill and falls a few feet and lands on her neck just so, and she can never walk again.

After all, life is fragile. We almost lost her right at the beginning.

TERROR.

You have to keep reminding yourself that most of us survive childhood just fine. I didn’t wear a bike helmet until my twenties. And the Adventure Playground at my school would never have made it off paper these days. From the upper deck eight feet high you could leap through the air to grab a firepole and slide to the ground. No railings anywhere. A sheer freestanding log wall ten feet high you had to scale with ropes. And we’d gleefully jump right off the top. I rode in the back of pickup trucks. From the time I was 7, my parents were fine with not seeing me all day except for meals. All the parents were. My friends and I ranged freely for kilometers in every direction, up into the hills and along the river. Climbing trees, building forts, following trails – or biking across town to the other river to see what was there. In winter it was the same, but with snow and ice and sledding as fast as humanly possible down the longest, steepest slopes we could find. We all survived just fine. Kids do.

So I keep telling myself.

This newly discovered pathological distrust of “strangers” though. That’s something else. I have a firmly rooted knowledge of what I am capable of doing to anyone who harms my little girl. Probably that will be a problem from time to time. Fellow Daddy, if your boy shoves my girl down, and you do nothing to correct the behaviour, it is not appropriate for me to leap on you and rain bloody murder on your face. No, sir. Not appropriate. But you should be aware that I am having that thought, and you would do well to offer your child some guidance.

Not at all sure what will happen if her teachers ever drop the ball.

And oh my sweet goodness, how the hell do I deal with dating? Actually, I’m ok with that part. It’s the hurting and breaking up and other messy bits.

No wonder conservative parents stuff their kids in boarding schools and church and such. The terror!

But you know, a wise man once said to me that my job as a father is to make myself redundant. Which is to say that if I do my job, eventually she won’t need Daddy’s protective wing. She will be a titan of confidence and self-reliance. And that is all I could ever really wish for her. Independence, strength, and a huge heart that knows what love is.

I love you madly, Avery Peppermint. More than I ever thought a human being could love. And that’s saying something because I love your mom an awful lot. Happy 1st birthday.