Complicated worries and an evening walk in the village

Today was a rare day in New York, as it was warm. So, after picking up Genevieve from day care I figured we’d stay outside for a bit.

We walked past the firehouse when one of the firefighters stopped me while holding a small gift bag. He said he has seen me and Genevieve walking every day, and he wanted to give her a little present: a small, fuzzy raccoon. It was really sweet.

I was still holding Genevieve then, but a moment later I put her down and she began galloping away from me. Off she went for the corner, though her fastest speed is basically my walking speed, so I kept up with her as she stopped near the curb. She seems to know the curb is a boundary. That’s when I reached out my index finger.

“Want to cross the street?”

She grabbed my finger and we were off. Me and a diaper bag. Her and a fuzzy raccoon. We crossed the street and walked uphill until we reached the first tree, surrounded by some fresh mulch laid down by the village public works department. Because mulch looks different than cement and stones, she stepped into the mulch and stomped a bunch of times. She mugged a bit, laughed, then balanced herself on the raised stones framing the trees. Then she continued onward, turning for a moment to look into the liquor store. She caught colored glass and stones in the window and gazed at that them for a moment.

After the liquor store is a parking lot entrance from Main Street, so I asked her to stop and hold my finger again. She did. We crossed the entrance and continued up the block. Soon she was crouching down and discovering pebbles dug next to a pole. She’d fish for the tiniest white pebble, bring it up and hand it to me, as if it was some treasure. Then she found a small black pebble and again handed it to me. For some reason I held onto these pebbles for the next 10 minutes.

There’s a funny bike rack next to the laundromat, and eyeing it, she ran over to it and thrust herself through the hole in the rack, beaming wide like she was in some Broadway revue. She did this three times. She thinks she’s hilarious. She is.

A couple inside the neighboring restaurant watched her and smiled. Other people watched and smiled, waved and said hello. Then Genevieve wanted to cross a small side street and, immediately after that, Main Street. So off we went, hand to finger. A couple crossed against us and cheered on Genevieve. She’s 17 months old. I know kids her age do all of this, but it’s really funny to me.

Genevieve looked inside the Chinese food restaurant, found dirt inside a potted plant by the popular Mediterranean restaurant and messed with it for a half-second before I shooed her away. Then more mulch, more stones, more mugging for people inside the restaurant. She passed by the woman who runs the furniture store that doubles as Sarah Jessica Parker’s workplace on TV. She caught the attention of a couple sitting down for dinner outside at the new American restaurant. Then she saw dog. She froze.

Genevieve has a complicated relationship with dogs. She has a sixth sense for them, yelling “dog!” whenever one of them is even a half-mile from our house. She’ll post up at the chair by the window so she can watch one. When she visits Gramma and Grandpa in Texas she practically cuddles with the seeing-eye dog they’re watching. But if a dog is within five feet of her she stops. She waits and observes, wondering if it’ll move first, hesitant to make any dramatic gestures. Soon she’ll reach out her hand and step lightly toward the dog. If the dog reacts quickly she’ll back away, maybe even whine, but if the dog is friendly she’ll come closer and soon be subjected to some licking.

This dog, a tiny thing who was tied to a pole while his owner bought food at the bodega, seemed scared of this orange-haired human slightly taller and twice his weight. He shrugged away as he whined. She wanted to touch him but he wouldn’t budge. I shrugged Genevieve away but she was too interested. The owner came outside and undid the leash tie as another couple tried to pass all of us. We were all too close. Luckily I was able to nudge Genevieve onward.

Then we passed a couple sitting outside the local pub enjoying beers. Next to them a familiar site: a covered stroller. They were probably a full year behind us. They were sitting back in their chairs, relieved smiles on their faces as they sipped up the final two hours of sunshine. I smiled at them, and then I became everyone else who saw me last year. “Enjoy that,” I said. Genevieve was moving along. “Because it becomes this.” They chuckled. I’m sure they went home and laughed about what I said. I’m sure they’ve heard it enough. I didn’t need to tell them. But it’s also good to hear it myself.

Not long ago I wrote about Genevieve’s illness and the resulting issues that surfaced. She didn’t want to be put down. She didn’t want to walk, crouch or be left alone. She broke out into random tantrums. She vomited a couple times. We visited the emergency room and she was filled up with fluids. All of that was scary.

This past week I’ve been worried about her weight. She looks skinnier than before — diapers seem to be looser and the pants seem to be falling a bit. I mentioned this to Sarah, who wasn’t as concerned about it and thinks she’s actually growing taller at the moment. But then, while dropping off Genevieve at day care, her teacher wondered if we had seen the doctor lately. “No,” I said. “I think she’s past the stuff she was going through before.”

“Well,” she continued, “do you think she’s losing weight?”

It’s hard to keep calm and do work and be yourself all the time when you have some knot tightening constantly inside your stomach. You’re doing your work and feeling fine and drinking coffee and then your phone rings, and for a moment you wonder if it’s day care saying she’s sick or she’s not acting herself or something is wrong, and though it’s not day care on the other line it’s already too late. You’ve lost yourself to the worries. You wonder if there’s something you’re missing, if there’s some virus attacking her by the second silently and slowly, and you don’t see it and can’t see it and she can’t say anything and you’ll only know when it’s too late. And you know that can’t be the case because she’s been at day care all day, and she sleeps through the night and her vocabulary is growing and she still eats — albeit sometimes not enough — and makes multiple diapers each day. And yet all you find yourself doing is typing random words into a Google search hoping some article that magically combines it all will spit out the answer: “SHE HAS THIS.”

Telling yourself “She doesn’t have this. She’s fine” takes a while. And it especially takes a while if you’re someone who has always told himself that there’s something wrong with him.

Because of her teacher’s concern we’re revisiting the doctor, but it’s likely there’s absolutely nothing wrong. She was sick and it takes time to recover because she’s small and new to the world. Also she’s growing and developing, and it’s not linear and that’s how it goes. But I also thought she was losing weight, so we’ll check. We’ll just check. That’s it.

It felt good to hear myself tell the couple that “it becomes this,” because this was a 17-month-old child tramping up and down her picturesque river village on a sunny spring evening. Though within about 30 seconds she was playing a little too much with the electronic bicycles displayed outside, so I picked her up and took her back home.

I put her on the top step and asked if she would sit next to me. She did. Together we watched the world pass by for a few minutes — me and my daughter, two curious children in different phases of our lives and occupied with completely different things, but brought together by that very knot in my stomach. Whatever I felt, whether it’s justified or not, is all because I can’t imagine a life without this little firecracker sitting next to me. I can’t imagine circumnavigating this globe without that toothy grin where she squints her eyes. All the silly faces she makes, the loud overtures she voices to nobody in particular, and the moments of frustration she exhibits whenever she doesn’t get her way are very much me. I see my story in her, and there’s nothing more than to watch her story spill from her limbs.

Right now, though, we watch the world.

After three minutes a dad passed by with a stroller. Genevieve took notice: “Baby!”

The kid in the stroller was basically the same age. Mine is going to be just fine.