Fork down

You're talking and walking. During the third wave of the pandemic the ICUs overflow with intubated patients, metro bus drivers are getting sick and the province shuts down, and yet your growth is like a plane taking off. You prefer to walk everywhere now, and sometimes you insist on walking outside in socks. Your relationship with your shoes runs hot and cold: sometimes you love to wear them, and at other times you refuse to wear them. Rob and Tomoko stopped by yesterday with soup and dessert for us and were saddened to see how much of your growth they've missed now that they haven't seen you for 2 weeks in a row. Another month of lockdown to go.

You talk a lot these days, too. You express your own thoughts (I think that's what the mumbles are) and mimic 80% of what I say. New words tumble from your mouth everyday. Sometimes they surprise me. Yesterday you said your own name - Aida King. Amazing! Probably you picked that up at daycare. It's a rich source of new words and phrases and even pop cultural references for you.

Today at lunchtime you dropped your small plastic and ceramic bowls, one by one, savouring each clatter (and mess - rice pudding and pasta everwhere). Pointing at each overturned bowl you exclaimed, Bowl! I pointed to the fork on the floor and you said, Fork, fork down. Like it was a fallen soldier.