Steps

About three weeks ago, Fiona became a walker. It was just barely more than two months after her cast came off. The funny thing about it, now, is that those two months seemed agonizingly long, as she worked, in her thoughtful way, to regain the strength and skills she lost during the time with a broken leg. And then she started taking a few steps -- 5 or 6 at a time -- in the last weeks of August, finally taking off and replacing crawling altogether during that second week of September. I had pictured in my mind that it would a big, grand thing, but it was so slow, and so gradual, that it didn't occur to me until after she was really a toddler, that it was "happening". It's funny how things go, isn't it? There was no parental papparazzi of camera and video camera snapping shots from every angle (as I imagined there would be) when she transitioned, ever so quietly, to walking. It just unfolded, like the unfolding of a flower.

I'm learning that this is the way with our Fiona. She has her own soft way about her, always unfolding, sometimes imperceptibly, until you realize that she has opened and grown, ever more toward the light.

It makes me ache with delight.