A bit of negotiation among developmental milestones.

I realized something today while contemplating what to write for this entry...

For the past several months, Andy and I have been anxiously awaiting the generally-accepted shift in talking that is supposed to occur when a child reaches 2 years of age. Now mind you, every child is different and all children develop in their own time, etc. - something a parent knows, rationally, to be true (yet feeling it in your heart is quite different) - and although we knew she might drag her little feet, metaphorically speaking, when it came time to speak, we also I think wished and hoped and prayed we would have a different outcome. That she would suddenly burst forth with glorious and uninhibited language... telling us of all her dreams, fears, needs, and inside jokes.

Ari had a much different sense of what her timetable looked like. She had a different sense of what her priorities were when she reached 2, and all of our frantic efforts to produce greater amounts of speech have been met, primarily, with a sort of calm and willful stubbornness that seems to be a marked characteristic of our young daughter's personality.

She is reluctant to say words she does not feel confident pronouncing, and she gets a bit mule-like when pressed to repeat words on command or to perform (as I imagine she experiences it) like a trained parrot or pony.

So we've been forced to be patient. She has quietly insisted we cool our jets and stop pushing so hard for some kind of vocal genesis and instead has insisted we take it at her pace.

Meanwhile... she wishes to race ahead physically. She keeps asking to climb trees and scale gym equipment that is at least 12-feet high. She loves heights and likes to jump on things like stairs and chairs and high walls and rocks and the edges of ponds, etc. She wants to run after birds and be far from sight and reach... she pushes ahead and seeks to establish herself as the leader, myself and Andy following after like chattering birds warning of some kind of vague danger she has neither a context for nor interest in.

And thus, we quibble and wiggle and confer and compromise - all three of us - as we attempt to collaboratively navigate these precarious changes of childhood and seek to find a path that seems authentic and comfortable despite our hoped-for versions of said journey.

The storyteller, the healer, and the daredevil... chatting in broken languages, half-understanding, as they float, scramble, and clamber over uneven ground, searching for a direction all three can maintain.