It has been a while since I last wrote anything to myself about this great experience of watching Paulo grow.
Last night he came to my bed (his daddy is away) and we slept there until this morning. When he woke up with his usual mischievous smile he heard the birds on the tree outside my bedroom window and said "pajarozzz!" (birds!). Wow. It is not that I am amazed at his recognizing the birds chirping, or that he knows the word for this animal (he has been saying "birtzzz" and recognized the word "Pajaro" for a long time now). It just amazed me that he used the Spanish word for the 1st time, and also used the plural form correctly. It is hard to explain, but it is not just the use of this particular word that surprised me (although I must say, my English speaking husband has been trying to say this word correctly for years and still hasn't mastered it!). It is the speed and frequency at which all these little moments are happening. This week there has been an incredible amount of new words he has learned to say and I have noticed he has been using more of the plural forms lately. Like, for instance, the other day he said "delfines" when he saw more than one dolphin. Again, WOW.
This is not to say that MY little guy is a genius. Yes I think he is a genius, but that is the way I feel about ALL babies. It is amazing to see that these creatures are thrown into this world knowing NOTHING about how this universe works, and yet from the very first day they have to learn to eat, breathe, recognize faces, and put together all those pieces of the puzzle that will help them survive. They are learning machines. My baby just happens to be really good with language. Other babies are good at physical things, others at socializing and maybe some others have faced other challenges since they were born, but they all have their incredible milestones. Us parents know that. We know how it feels when your heart half-stops when a moment like this occurs. When my son said "pajarozz" this morning, I just sat there in bed and I swear I must have looked around in the room looking for somebody to acknowledge how amazing that was. If this had happened with other people around I probably would have had to stop myself from telling everybody out loud how exciting this was and would have gotten lots of funny looks.
I just needed to write down how wonderful it is to be a child, and how great it is to be a parent to witness it. It just makes me want to stop everything for a moment, breathe deeply and think to myself what a blessing my son has been in my life.
