Amanda Vibes

I am walking in The Box and carrying Amanda. She is squiggling in my arms like I imagine a ferret would. She wants down. I place her down. Down on her own two feet. She steadies herself a bit and then she's off. We walks with joy and determination. I try to hold her hand and she brushes it aside. She turns, walks back in the direction from whist we came. She turns again. If she encounters a stair or uneven ground she will pause and wait for me to hold her hand for balance. Once past the obstacle, she shakes free and continues.

Amanda was later to walking than Aidan, Lydia, or Elisa and she made up for lost time. Her favorite activity is walking during her 15th and 16th months. She'd want to walk everywhere - through the Utown mall in Beijing. Down the cobblestones in Chongqinq. To the playground in Xiangyang. At a random road stop on the way to Chengdu.

Having mastered walking at 17 months, she now wants to be held. Leave the stroller at home, and carry her. She walk if there is something interesting or if the vibes hits her, but mostly she wants to be held. She signals this by sitting on her butt in the middle of the sidewalk. She strongly prefers Sabrina do the holding. When Sabrina hands her off to me, there's a push away with her tiny hands, a whine, and then she's fine in my arms. When I hand her off to Sabrina, those same arms reach out and the same voice squeals with joy.

One of my grounding thoughts is that of "becoming". Becoming a father. Becoming <some position> at work. That you can recognize the people in the process of "becoming" versa the people that are already that thing. And the recognition acts as an antidote to judgment. On a different dimension, with all my kids, I saw their first months as becoming human. They start to notice, start to communicate, and form a distinct personality. As Amanda has. At 17 months, when Elisa comes home Amanda turns to the front door and in greets her warm with audible sounds. She has a fondness for middle age woman and will stand in front of them and talk. She's starting to play with and pet Kobe. She gets a kick out of me hiding around a corner and ducking into/out of view. She's becoming human.