is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
Wednesday
Aug072013
Unexpected milestones
Wednesday, August 7, 2013 
This post is inspired by Shot@Life, an initiative of the United Nations Foundation. Please leave a comment below. Every comment provides a vaccine for a child.
My son was five months old when he said his first word. This is the stuff of family legends that gets bent and bowed and tucked away and brought out again in a far-different shape that it was first created. One day that five-month milestone will be whittled down to three months or earlier, maybe shrink back to the womb. But five months is the true timeline.
I know because I was there to hear the "HI!" emerge from the babbling.
By the time he was a year old, I had a well-filled notebook lined with careful columns of the 120 words he could say. I tracked it all, just pages away from spiral-bound lists of when I breastfed him, how long his naps were, what he weighed at each well-check doctor appointment. I read like crazy and stacks of child-development books, affirmations for new parents, guides to schedules and sleeping and crying it out and attachment parenting piled up on the table next to the glider where I nursed my babbling baby boy from infancy into toddlerhood.<
I charted this new territory of motherhood quietly and calmly. E rattled off the barnyard animals but he wasn't walking, or even attempting to cruise around from coffee table to sofa to ottoman to wobbly fall on the floor.
It will come, I assured myself and my then-mother-in-law, who fretted that her babies walked early and mine did not.
All of his energy is going to conversation, I said, repeating the mama-wisdom I'd heard my mother say and her mother say. I believed it. Still, I'd carry that notebook with me to see the pediatrician, who I knew was relaxed about children's individual growth and development, just in case she asked where his energy was going if it wasn't pushing him up on his feet and propelling him around our tiny apartment.
She never asked, at least in a worried way. And he did walk, at 15 months. Then he ran and climbed and gazed lovingly at Gloria Estefan and shook his tiny, diapered booty. He was potty-trained and sent off to preschool. He eventually skipped with proficiency and can wheel a scooter with the best of 'em at the park. And he did all of that, talking the entire time, providing his own color commentary to each milestone he passed.
As I ticked off the milestones in my head, notebook and then reassuring discussions with E's grandmothers, I felt the slide into a different parenting space. One where the worries shifted from "will he ever really learn to tie a shoe without my assistance?" and "please, God, let him master the art of peeing standing up" to bigger childhood concerns we all cringe to see coming. Bullying. Broken hearts. Driving. Drugs. Prom date disappointment. Moving away. That first god-awful apartment with seven other laundry protesters. The first job interview. Love. They'd come. But not yet. They were off somewhere in tweendom or teendom or beyond.
Once he was safely in big-boy undies, I thought the milestones had subsided and The Big Stuff was enough off in the distance that I could breathe easy. What I didn't know was that the milestones would keep coming, and bring a gasp of surprise and wonder and bittersweet delight.
I got that the moment I heard E read aloud for the first time. Sure, I knew it was going to happen soon. For a year or two, he'd been sounding out words and memorizing books we'd lovingly brutalized reading over and over again. He built a solid list of sight-words, much like that first list of vocabulary, and soon, he was stringing together sentences. I urged him on, we practiced, he learned to write as he read and the two skills skipped along happily with my talker of a boy.
Then the words came tumbling out of his mouth for pages at a time. And the tears fell down my smiling cheeks while more words came. I'd try to capture it all on video, and only end up with bits and pieces. Or I'd mean to press record but would find my fingers unable to move away from holding the book and my boy as he read to me. As he read to me.
Here he is at seven, reading pages from a favorite, funny book. A first-grader, his amazing teacher pushed him to think and research and ask questions and told him it was time to read more. She gave him his first chapter book to read on his own. It was from the Cam Jansen series. He didn't love it. He liked it (he's diplomatic that way) just enough to open his hands when I handed him another chapter book and another and another to read on his own.
That milestone of reading at six became the even more astounding milestone of whizzing through chapter books at seven. Today, nearing the end of age eight, this kid hates to go anywhere without a book. He's devoured the three series by Rick Riordan in a matter of months and he cannot wait for the next 500+-page book to come out this fall. He prefers to lay side by side before bedtime, reading independently for a bit rather than letting me read aloud to him.
I miss that sometimes. I think I cherished Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White even more than the words he wrote deserved (and they deserved a lot of love) because it was the last chapter book I read aloud to my son this year. I won't hold that sadness, though, because it is so fun to see E buried inside a story, bursting to talk about the characters and begging to stop off at a bookstore.
At seven, with a biography of Jackie Robinson in his backpack and Diary of a Wimpy Kid on his nightstand and 39 Clues at his dad's house, all simultaneously half-read, he still hadn't figured out how to breathe underwater during swimming lessons and was in a full-on boycott of even TRYING to ride his bike. (The swimming came the next spring but he's still a bicycle rebel. And so I buy another book, and exhale.)
This kid is who he is, and I get the joy of discovering him every day. That's not overly sentimental. Sometimes it is exhausting and hard and full of fret. But most moments, it is me with my notebook or laptop or video recorder or chapter book, meticulously marking the path he sets out on. One word, one step, one sentence, one chapter, one series, one mother's spiral notebook, one milestone at a time.
The rest will come. Today, all of his energy is going to reading.
This post is inspired by Shot@Life, an initiative of the United Nations Foundation that educates, connects and empowers the championing of vaccines as one of the most cost effective ways to save the lives of children in the world’s hardest to reach places.
During Shot@Life’s Blogust, 31 bloggers, one each day in August, are writing about moments that matter. For every comment on this post and the 30 other posts, Walgreens will donate a vaccine (up to 50,000 vaccines). A child dies every 20 seconds from a vaccine-preventable disease. We can change this reality and help save kids’ lives!
Sign up here for a daily email so you can quickly and easily comment and share every day during Blogust! Stay connected with Shot@Life at www.shotatlife.org, join the campaign on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.
Please leave a comment below. Every comment provides a vaccine for a child.
Reader Comments (216)
Thank you for writing for Shot@Life!
I hope one day my children will love talking and reading as much as your boy! Especially the Rick Riordan books (those are fantastic!) Your son is certainly an intelligent boy.
What a fantastic chronicle of a child's growth and the worry that accompanies a responsible and proud parent. It is such an honour to read your words and know that there are truly blessed children out there with great mentors watching over their every move (and documenting it lol). Thanks for being part of this wonderful campaign which hopefully will give other children the chance to grow into healthy and capable adults. Cheers and best wishes to all. VD
I love hearing about kids who get such great joy from reading a book! I cannot even begin to explain how excited I get to crack open a book and get lost in another world for awhile, just let my imagination run wild. And thank you for sharing your story with Shot@Life so that other kids can get the vaccinations they need!
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Enjoy all of these milestones. It's amazing to read that you know he's his own person and you let him revel in that. He will thank you for that one day, I guarantee it.
I love watching my children unfold into the people they are meant to be. It's so awesome to witness. Love to you.
A beautiful story for an amazing cause!
Reading. One of the best adventures!!!
There is nothing better than having 2 or 3 books going at the same time. Love that tub pic!
I am so excited to hear that your son loves to read! My daughter is 4 and carries a picture book with her everywhere, so I am hopeful that she will have the same love for books that I do.
Terrific post! Reading is the best gift we can give our children. Both my daughters are avid readers, and come by that naturally as both my husband and I are as well.
Yay for E! Hoping my daughter will loves books as much as I do. Such a wealth of knowledge and entertainment.
Funny how some kids just look at books and know, "those are for me!" I remember loving books from the moment I could decode the words in Go, Dog. Go! Can't even imagine a life with books in it.
Brings back happy memories of me reading instead of so many other things out there. I wouldn't change a thing.
Fantastic to hear about a boy who loves to read, good work mama!
Your post brought back so many memories of various milestones with my daughter. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing this wonderful story and supporting Shot@Life!
I was also a reader and ,considering my collection of books, still do a bit of it.
That's awesome. I hope he continues to have a love for reading all of his life.
Thank you for supporting this cause.
Love Shot@life, and loved your post!
This is a great post and I'm going to share the link on fb.
So nice! My older son won't go anywhere without a book. I have to pry it out of his hands so he won't walk into the street.
Thanks for the post
Great post. My 10 year old son is the same way. He loves to read. Some of his milestones have come remarkably fast and some are slow. This really encouraged me because my son is unique and quirky. He spends so much of his energy reading and imagining things. The rest will come in his own time. I sometimes feel like I need to rush my son because I believe he should be at a different level, but all in his time. With maybe a little help from his mom.
That's amazing! Good for him and good for you for letting him set his own pace. I, too, am an avid reader and can't imagine not having two or three books on the go.
Great blog (I mean post!) Love the pics of teeny e reading, same pose every time.
This could have been written about my firstborn. Also...I have a lot to learn about mothering from you.
A lovely retelling, as always. Lucky mama; lucky kid.
I share your sentiment about discovering who they are every day.
I love to read. Always have. I don't think there has been a single day in either of my boys' lives where they HAVEN'T seen me read something. And yet, it did not pass to them. Daily reading has to be a requirement of mine for them. I am jealous of you, in the nicest possible way!
Beautiful post! Reading is a wonderful gift to have!
a child who reads is a beautiful thing!
Lovely.
As a first-time expectant mother, I found this very touching. Can't wait to experience all these happy and bittersweet milestones. And thank you for participating in Blogust and helping kids around the world!
I love how your son was talking in utero ;)
Great post!!! Thanks so much for sharing such a wonderful and special story for #blogust
This is gorgeous! Thank you for being a part of this. And for sharing these beautiful reflections of your boy.
Amazing post! I read 300 books the summer I was 8. I hope your son continues to love to read.
I'm raising a reader, too and it is truly amazing to watch. My daughter cried over a books so much a few nights ago that she ended up cuddling with me on the couch for an hour. I love to see her experience the world this way. She's also a bicycle rebel.
I wish I could meet this kid. He sounds like my kind of person. Keep on reading, E.
This brought back great memories for me -- and also a recollection of the worry around missing those milestones. Great post and great cause, shot@life!
<3
So sweet. So true. So much patience, love, and worry in motherhood.
Reading is still as second nature to me as breathing. I loved reading this, and I pray that my 3 carry with them special memories of me reading to them!
Love this post. Boy, isn't that the truth that each kid puts their energy into different things. I'm still working on making my kids avid readers, even though we read, read, read when they were small and still read together. I'm so glad that E is so passionate about his reading - it truly is the best escape you can have for a lifetime.
Thank you so much for doing this! What a wonderful cause.
Beautifully done, Jess!
Another wonderful story! Thank you for sharing!
Awesome!! E is such a great reader! The only reason I started walking so young (8 months!) is because my brothers would sit on me, and I wasn't down for that. :)
Let's get as many comments as possible! Great post.
Anything to promote childhood vaccines!!!! Beautiful article...such a gift you have with words, I'm always left awed :)