Walking, walking, walking

Over the weekend, I took Dear Alex out for a longish walk - we wandered over to one of my favorite places - the Conran's by the 59th street bridge - I love to look at the hugely expensive and usually well designed stuff that has no place in our present life. It is, however, a good place to get great kid's books, and it's usually good for an hour or so of letting Dear Alex run around inside when it's cold outside. On this trip we stayed mostly outside as Dear Alex wanted to be "outside" (one of her new favorite words) so that she could walk around in the small park that's behind the store, and that's what this is about. One of the first things you learn (and keep learning) as a new-ish parent is patience - the patience to indulge your child the time and energy it takes to learn and obsessively do the smallest of things over and over again. This day it was walking up and down a concrete ramp, in every possible way. She'd start at the bottom, give a little shout of "up" and stomp her way up the ramp - at the top she'd turn around and give a little shout of "down" and she'd walk down the ramp, at the bottom, she'd turn around, give a little shout of "up" and stomp her way up the ramp - at the top she'd turn around and give a little shout of "down" and she'd walk down the ramp, at the bottom... repeat as necessary until you're freezing, and just a little over the wonder of it all - but for some reason, it doesn't get old - every trip had a nuance, a newness to her - she tried little tiny steps, big steps, a little shuffle, walking backwards (that was new to me) - and if you're paying close attention you get rewarded with watching that brand new brain working out how the world works.

I should point out that this entire walking exercise was an almost perfect repeat of the day before - she really is getting good at getting around.