11/28

When I picked Zac up from daycare last night, all of the Shoe Nazis were exclaiming with joy. "He's learning how to walk!" they shouted. They turned to each other and nodded in approval and looked down at Zac, who beamed up at all of them with pride. Ah yes, my son, he's becoming a walker.

I'm not sure why I feel like this is such an accomplishment (or why it makes me insanely happy. It just does, let it be at that). It most certainly has something to do with waiting and anticipating for the day that he would let go of the couch cushion and come toddling over to me. I was starting to feel like I would have to carry him on-stage at his highschool graudation in 2023 to accept his diploma, apologizing the whole time by saying, "The doctors say he's physical fine. He just doesn't WANT to walk yet." At that point, I'd be 43 years-old with arms the size of tree trunks and a permanently hunched back.

There will be a time when the thoughts of him when he was "little" will feel far away. When he's 8 or 9, I'm sure that the memory of his first tentative days of walking will blur into all the other memories of the first day at school, picking out a Christmas tree, or the first time Zac tells me that he loves me. Walking will be old-hat by then. Just something that he does everyday without either one of us giving it much thought - like breathing, thinking, or loving.