The last 50 days

A lot has happened in 50 days. I’ll go backwards, because it’s easier to remember the most recent things.

Today Genevieve took off her t-shirt by herself. She pushed the shirt up over her head, then while pacing between two rooms, she removed her arms from the sleeves and left the cloth in a ball on the floor. Moments later, she started reaching into her diaper and pushing down at her rear in a valiant but unsuccessful attempt at taking off her pants and being completely naked. And so we begin the naked phase.

Yesterday I picked Genevieve up from day care and we watched the blustery street beneath us from the living room window. She pointed at dogs, jumped and giggled. She grabbed a photograph of Sarah and I and pointed at us while smiling. The day before that I asked Alexa — because we now have an Amazon Echo Dot — to play “The Wheels on the Bus,” and her eyes became as large as pizza pies as she started motioning along with the song.

Recognizing “The Wheels on the Bus” is just about two months old. She also knows “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” As that song played two days ago she curled into my arms and sucked her thumb, then she rubbed my beard and I quietly sobbed tears of joy.

Genevieve got really sick for the first time. About a month ago she awoke with a fever over 101, which carried for several days. She was restless, barely ate, and constantly leaking snot and mucus. After the fever faded we took her back to day care, only to be told that Genevieve had spontaneously broken out into a red rash throughout her body. One of our young, unfazed doctors laughed and immediately diagnosed her with roseola, a virus that almost solely strikes children aged six months to two years. It’s also a form of herpes, so that’s something to keep in my back pocket for when she’s a rebellious teenager, I guess.

But then, last week, she vomited overnight. And she vomited again at day care a few days ago. It’s curious. She’s also a child, and children vomit more often than I’d like to know.

Genevieve started wanting to go outside all the time. If I grab my shoes because I’m heading out to the grocery store or, hell, the mailbox, she’ll scramble to grab Sarah’s shoes, then drop them at her feet, like a dog eager to catch a Frisbee. She knows “daddy’s shoes” are the navy ones with the white stripe, though there was the one time she dropped sandals in front of me with snow falling outside. That felt like a joke.

But she cries if she’s not going outside, or if we’re taking longer than she would like to get outside. She wants nothing more than to wear her coat, but then I’ll patiently ask her to dress in the coat, and she’ll be busy tapping a crayon against the coffee table. She also loves her crayons; she knows how to unzip the bag and let them all spill onto the floor. She doesn’t eat the crayons anymore, but she will draw on anything, so we have to quickly ensure a notebook is nearby.

Genevieve protests meals. We’re constantly told that she eats well at day care, and that she’ll even pick other children’s food from their plates because she’s finished with her lunch and wants more. Then at home I’ll prepare a balanced meal for dinner and put the plate on the table, Sarah will pick her up to sit her down in her high chair, and Genevieve will start screaming the loudest, shrillest, most uncontrollable screams we’ll ever know. The screaming lasts about 10 minutes, give or take 20 minutes, during which we’ll sit silently and let her run the clock out like it was the end of a blowout basketball game. At some point she’ll quiet down, then let her tears fade and start grabbing at her food. She’ll eat half the meal. It makes no sense.

She visited gramma and grandpa in Texas, sampled her first authentic barbecue, enjoyed hanging out with her cousin — a red-headed half-Scottish, half-Texan boy — and endured her first photo shoot in a blanket of bluebonnets. This is something every child goes through in Texas. At least this is what I’m told.

She saw her granny, poppy, uncles, aunts, and cousins during a visit to Philadelphia after the new year. She received what is now her favorite toy, the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Servin’ Up Fun Food Truck, which stands next to her crib and occupies her for about 10 minutes every day. In the last 50 days I’ve committed the truck’s little jingle to my memory, along with the phrase “I love to make food on my grill!” Some days she’ll even delay putting on her socks and shoes, which was her favorite pastime for a while, for a few minutes behind the food truck’s sink.

Like I said, a lot has happened in 50 days.

There’s a song on Paul McCartney’s 1983 album Pipes of Peace called “The Other Me.” It played on my Spotify playlist while driving home from my psychotherapy appointment this week. The second verse goes like this:

I know it doesn’t take a lot
To have a little self control
But every time that I forgot
Well I landed in another hole

But everytime you pulled me out
I find it harder not to see
That we can build a better life
If I can try to find the other me

As is customary with me, that lyric brought a tear to my eye while driving home.

Genevieve has been through a lot in the last 50 days; her growth has been staggering. What I thought was a full personality is now bursting. She’s layered and complex, balancing ups and downs like anyone else while grappling with understanding the world surrounding her. She wants things, she can’t have things, she learns things, she plays around. She’s nearly 17 months old, but with each day something new emerges that makes me and everyone else forget her age. She’s blossoming all the time.

I’ve broken down and found myself in a fit multiple times over the last 50 days. I fight with my emotions, say the wrong thing, and become so frustrated that I boil over in a rage of emptiness. Currently I’m tackling my lack of self-confidence, which has plagued me for decades and, I think, stems from high expectations that I — and many others — had for me at a younger age. Nothing’s that easy, of course, because I’m layered and complex. Digging into every patch of land creates another hole that I have to sort through and connect to the others. What helps is what’s around me. Sarah and Genevieve, of course, and my friends each pull me out of these holes and help me sort and connect. The more I do this, the more I learn, and the better life becomes. But it’s hard work.

These 50 days will not define Genevieve. They will not define me. But in that time, as she has discovered so many aspects of life that were previously unknown to her, I also discovered quite a bit. We’re all growing in our own little ways.