This month I learned about empowerment.
I learned that using a real fork allows me to stab my chicken and bring to to my own mouth. Those baby forks are practically useless with their blunt plastic tines, but grown-up forks are powerful tools. I have a feeling that knives would make me a truly formidable opponent against a piece of meat, but no one will let me near them. It's ageism, I tell you! I learned that spoons can be useful for scooping, but my personal favorite motion will always be the powerful stab-and-jab method.
I learned that I can propel myself while riding my musical train. Now that I'm almost 32 inches tall, my feet reach the ground when I sit on my train, and I can make that sucker careen across the floor, all while blaring "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" at an annoyingly loud volume.
I learned that I can sit on my potty all by myself. I still have no idea why everyone wants me to sit on a plastic bowl with my pants around my ankles, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. It has something to do with diapers. That's about all I've gleaned thus far.
I learned that I can get food out from between my teeth with the help of floss. (Full disclosure: I make Mommy do it because I've learned to be wary of string. I really can't stand when my bananas have any of that stringy nonsense between the fruit and its peel, and if my shirt suddenly sprouts a wayward string, I find it necessary to complain at the top of my lungs until someone removes it.)
I learned that baby showers are full of excitement. We celebrated back-to-back babies-to-be this month, and if the babies themselves are half as fun as the parties in their honor, then maybe I've been wrong about not wanting a sibling. At the first baby shower (for Ian and Tabitha's baby boy), I learned how to wear a lei and how to walk up and down (and up and down) an imposing flight of metal stairs. Good times. The next day, we joined in the celebration for Camille and Jay's baby girl. That's where I learned how to jump around a bounce house and sway to the reggae music being played by a DJ. There's only one thing I don't really understand about baby showers: where were the babies? And why weren't we in the shower? Adults come up with the strangest names for their events. In unrelated news, Tabitha and Camille are getting really fat.
I learned that there are three methods of shopping, and there are certain advantages and disadvantages to each. The first method is being attached to Mommy with the help of our baby carrier. From that vantage, I can see what she sees. I've gathered that she's short for adult standards, but the extra few feet of elevation make a huge difference to me. She keeps me warm up there, too, which is a significant plus when we're in Publix, where shopping is a pleasure but often chilly. The main disadvantage of being worn is my inability to roam or reach. Sometimes that doesn't bother me, but on occasion, I spy something begging to be grabbed, and then I'm stuck and out of luck. The second method of shopping is sitting in the cart. I'm still higher up than usual, but it's not quite as good as being held. In the cart I reign over the treasures we collect as we walk through the aisles and remove items from the shelves. This allows me to turn around, pick up one of the treasured items, and throw it on the ground. I don't do this often, but it's nice to know that I have the option. (There was an incident involving a bottle of Benadryl in Target that resulted in a "clean up in aisle 4" and Mommy taking the blame, which I thought was incredibly cool of her. I'll have to remember that favor one night when I feel like waking her up at 2:00 AM.) The problem with sitting in the cart is that I am neither touching Mommy nor truly free to express myself as a full-fledged walker. It's nice to ride, but only as long as I want to and not one second longer. The third - and most empowering - of the shopping methods is walking on my own. Having the freedom to browse, read labels, test out the elasticity of any given product...I can't really express how valuable all that is to me. Sure, I'm too short to reach most of the shelves, and I do get tired of walking about the time that Mommy needs me to hurry-up-and-take-my-hand-and-let's-GO, but these are small prices to pay for the sheer joy of unencumbered locomotion. There's nothing more powerful than a gal on the go.
With my own two feet,
Zelda
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