Rory FitzgeraldEmilia’s big blue eyes shone above her joyful toothy grin as she trundled forward clumsily – walking, for the very first time. Her hands were held up in an “I surrender” posture as she merrily stumbled back and forth between her mother and I, to shrieks of delight and applause from her older siblings. She knew it was a big deal, this walking thing.
Perhaps learning to walk is one of our first big achievements in life, a milestone on a par with learning to ride a bike or drive a car. Emilia certainly took to it instantly and now refuses to travel by buggy. Walking is her preferred means of locomotion. Trips to the village are therefore more laborious, as they are conducted at the pace of a waddling one-year-old.
Our joy at her newfound ability is offset by new anxieties: our newly bipedal baby is now able to blithely walk out in front of traffic and to run gamely off the top of a steep set of stairs. Even as we love to see our children grow, there is a melancholy sense of parting as a small baby slowly fades away, and a boisterous and fun toddler emerges, mischievous and grinning, in her place.
Emilia had threatened to walk for months before she took off in earnest. She teased us by standing there casually, with perfect balance. She even danced before she could walk – at the first hint of any music, she cannot help but to shake that nappy. She could dance brilliantly before she ever walked. I on the other hand, have been walking competently for over three decades, but I still cannot dance.
When children begin talking and reading, such complex new skills develop gradually as sounds and letters morph into meaningful words over months and years. Sometimes though, as a butterfly leaving a cocoon, a new development takes place in an instant. Such a metamorphosis occurred at our local pool during swimming lessons last week. Seán, now six, was on his second ever lesson. On the first day he was happy enough to bob about in armbands, but that was about it.
Errands
I had a couple of errands to run, so I left the lesson for 10 minutes. I returned to the incredible sight of my boy jumping into the water, without armbands, and proceedings to immerse himself fully before swimming a width of the pool with a fairly competent breast stroke.
I actually thought I must be looking at another kid, until his teacher came up to me similarly amazed, saying “have you seen this?”
Like all members of the iPhone generation, we invariably try to capture such milestones on our phones to share with family and friends online.
The pool’s strict no-cameras rule meant that this moment will have to live on the old fashioned way, in my memory. It is all the more precious for it: I can still see him gliding beneath the water, with surprising grace, and emerging happily babbling, “You just float. That’s what happens. It’s just like flying! It is flying!”
In such moments, we parents fly too.