This weekend, Leya did something that broke my heart, had me crying at 3am on Sunday morning: she grew a tooth.
My gorgeous niece waited a full year before she started teething, so I honestly thought that we would be able to delight in Leya's tortoisey smile for some time to come. But no - it seems as though that baby face is going to change all too quickly (oddly, while most babies apparently grow the bottom front tooth first, Leya's tiny pearler is on the top jaw, so that when it has fully emerged she's going to look a little like a Disney crone).
How can this have happened so fast? It seems that just yesterday she was a minute blob with a decidedly Asian cast to her face and hair that grew in a helmet shape, starting at her left eyebrow, stretching around the back of her head and ending at the right. Not only that, but her hairline started at her eyebrows too. (We found it most amusing that a baby bearing the name of one of the world's most famous space characters should have an astronaut's headpiece fashioned entirely from her own hair.)
I remember how she used to glare at us, her snappish eyes darting from side to side and her diminutive hands clasped at the fingertips like a small but furious shareholder who was decidedly unimpressed by the results reported at the latest Board meeting. It was as though she found the world decidedly lacking, and was placing the blame solely at our door. "What do you think her personality will be like?" I asked James one morning and he, looking at her cross, hirsute little visage answered, "Angry and suspicious, I'm afraid."
How wrong he was. Leya has a grin for everyone: many's the time an onlooker has turned to me, awed and happy and said, "She smiled at me! Babies never smile at me!" It's really sweet that they feel favoured in this manner; far be it for me to tell them that my daughter is the world's most undiscriminating smiler.
Now that that smile is about to change, I feel bereft. It's just one step from here to her refusing to walk next to me when we go to Sandton City because she finds it embarrassing to have parents; and wearing a brown velour tracksuit when I force her to do so, in the time honoured tradition of children who believe that the best way to deflect attention when with their parents is to look ugly. Of course she won't always want to look ugly though; soon she'll be thinking about boys...and this sets my mind down a train of thought it just can't handle.
Is it any wonder that during tonight's Mommy Shuffle I warbled my way poignantly through 'Sunrise, Sunset, stumbling sadly over the words?
Drat that tooth!
My gorgeous niece waited a full year before she started teething, so I honestly thought that we would be able to delight in Leya's tortoisey smile for some time to come. But no - it seems as though that baby face is going to change all too quickly (oddly, while most babies apparently grow the bottom front tooth first, Leya's tiny pearler is on the top jaw, so that when it has fully emerged she's going to look a little like a Disney crone).
How can this have happened so fast? It seems that just yesterday she was a minute blob with a decidedly Asian cast to her face and hair that grew in a helmet shape, starting at her left eyebrow, stretching around the back of her head and ending at the right. Not only that, but her hairline started at her eyebrows too. (We found it most amusing that a baby bearing the name of one of the world's most famous space characters should have an astronaut's headpiece fashioned entirely from her own hair.)
I remember how she used to glare at us, her snappish eyes darting from side to side and her diminutive hands clasped at the fingertips like a small but furious shareholder who was decidedly unimpressed by the results reported at the latest Board meeting. It was as though she found the world decidedly lacking, and was placing the blame solely at our door. "What do you think her personality will be like?" I asked James one morning and he, looking at her cross, hirsute little visage answered, "Angry and suspicious, I'm afraid."
How wrong he was. Leya has a grin for everyone: many's the time an onlooker has turned to me, awed and happy and said, "She smiled at me! Babies never smile at me!" It's really sweet that they feel favoured in this manner; far be it for me to tell them that my daughter is the world's most undiscriminating smiler.
Now that that smile is about to change, I feel bereft. It's just one step from here to her refusing to walk next to me when we go to Sandton City because she finds it embarrassing to have parents; and wearing a brown velour tracksuit when I force her to do so, in the time honoured tradition of children who believe that the best way to deflect attention when with their parents is to look ugly. Of course she won't always want to look ugly though; soon she'll be thinking about boys...and this sets my mind down a train of thought it just can't handle.
Is it any wonder that during tonight's Mommy Shuffle I warbled my way poignantly through 'Sunrise, Sunset, stumbling sadly over the words?
Drat that tooth!
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