So what if Adessa's just moving backwards and shaking her hands around a lot? She's a mover and a shaker these days! Adessa scoots backwards into and under things, has started trying to pull herself up to standing, and twists her wrists like a flamenco dancer when she's excited. The wrist wriggling is her trademark. With her arms out or flapping, she twists faster the more excited she is. When music comes on or she hears singing (or even a phone ring), Adessa will bounce her head and shoulders-- early dancing! No white-man's overbite to report, yet. She is also turning into a dedicated waver, waving indescriminately but with great technique. She has a whole host of facial expressions--new ones pop onto her face all the time-- and still is very, very smiley. She has a lot to talk about, too. When she wakes up, she starts softly with "Bwah, bwah" sounds. She gets loud when chewing on things, (still only two teeth, though,) more like: "Aaa Aaaagghhhhhhhh AAaaaa AAAAaaa AAAAgh". She seems most talkative in quiet places, like church. I'm pretty sure nobody minds, though. Because she's darn cute.
Days will go by where I get used to having her around, and then it will dawn again: this precious, sweet, tiny person is part of me, is partly mine. Oh my goodness. What lovely wake up calls. Her little dimpled hands are mine to kiss. When she is sad she wants me. Calvin and I know her best in all the world. It is such an amazing, marvelous thing--to parent, to be a family, to watch her from so close.
Loving Adessa so much and seeing her change and grow and develop into her personality have brought up a new emotion for me, one I was kind of late in naming. It is fear. I have voiced fears, of course, about her falling off the changing table, or not getting enough to eat in a certain sitting, or being too cold. But I've also noticed some new fears. I suddenly understand the horror of kidnapping in a whole different way. Car accidents and potential disasters run through my over-grown imagination. Some of my fears I can directly relate to movies, like worrying about her getting stalked, or tortured, or having bad experiences in a war, or even teased. It seems like I let my mind meander just a little too long down the path of sadness and fright with each scenario I allowed myself. The last straw was when I had all the emotions involved as if she had been bitten by a robot bug and taken over by an evil machine/alien. That's when I knew it was getting a little out of hand. A friend has noticed that when kids reach about two years old, moms go through a stage of being really worried about what if they, the parent, were to die and leave the little toddler without a mom. Maybe I'm reaching one of those parenting stages, where we ward off the horrible possibilities by imagining them and standing up to the boogey man by shaking the ideas off one by one. Who knows. Not sure how my theory stands up next to Christian theology, I just know any fear is a good reminder to turn and pray and trust.
