Playin' in the Shadows

As I rushed around Monday morning getting ready for work, my little tail disappeared and got quiet. Silence is usually the best indicator that she is into something she shouldn’t be. I peeked out the bathroom door, and there she sat on the floor in the kitchen. She discovered her shadow.

I stood quietly and watched her for a few minutes. She kept moving her little hands back and forth across the floor, trying desperately to catch the dark spots that were following her relentlessly. Then she moved a foot, and again a dark line seemed to follow so she grabbed her toes…only to discover that made the dark spot sticking out from the side of her foot even larger.

She turned her body around to face the opposite direction and looked down at her feet and hands. No dark spots anywhere to be found. She slowly turned back and watched the shadows gradually appear again. After a few more failed attempts at catching them, she got a look on her face that seemed to say, “Screw it. I’ll figure it out another day.” And back to the bathroom she came.

Moments like this are absolutely priceless. Her dad left so early that morning, and getting ready for work while taking care of Punky on my own can be very challenging…more and more as she gets older and into everything. It was absolutely wonderful to have an interruption in the chaos and take a few moments to just enjoy her and smile ear to ear at her latest discovery. No matter how simple, my mind translates it into “my baby is the smartest baby that ever lived.”

I’m sure I’m no different than every other proud mama out there. Before having one of my own, I wondered if parents were really as blindly in love with their children as they appeared to be. All parents seemed to think their children were the smartest, funniest, most beautiful children to ever walk the earth.

Back then it was so clear to me that some of them were wrong. I wondered how some could marvel at their kids’ accomplishments when in truth they were barely “C” students. I didn’t understand how no parent would ever admit that their child was not the most attractive apple in the bushel. I mean, come on now, admit it…some babies just aren’t that attractive. Stories of how little Joey cracked everyone up at dinner last night, or learned to tie his shoes, or even discovered his shadow, were not funny or entertaining to me. They were irritating. I always bit my lip when I wanted to say, “Please stop consuming our entire lunch hour with all this dribble about your snotty, little kid. No one cares.” How could they not see that no one wanted to hear their boring baby stories? Geez.

Yeah, I get it now. It took having one to fully comprehend. And no matter how cute the little girl is down the street, Punky will always be cuter. No matter what kind of grades she gets in school, she will always be a rocket scientist in my eyes. No matter how old she gets, the things she says and does will always be the funniest, most entertaining stories to me. And I proudly bore many people every day with the mundane details of Punky’s amazing life. This blog is exhibit A.

I thought some of those parents were wrong; now I know that all of them were wrong. Punky is the best baby that ever lived. She just discovered her shadow.

And she’s mine.