She crawls!!!!!!

It actually took place Saturday and I'm just now getting around to blogging it, yet MAKE NO MISTAKE: that is not because I wasn't floored (no pun intended).  She is the girl who crawled (shout out to you Harry Potter fans).
I was gone all day Saturday at PupFest, an amazing joint venture put on by Kitchen Dog Theater and Junior Players wherein student playwrights are given directors, actors, rehearsal space, and ultimately an audience after a week of rehearsals which culminates in a reading of their plays.  I was a playwright mentor, which I've been for several years now, assigned to three playwrights to help cull the best version of their project, which sometimes means adding and sometimes means cutting and occasionally means crying, but is almost always by end satisfying.  This year was no exception.  
But I wasn't home, and Brad had the kids.  During an afternoon visit to his mother's assisted living building, apparently while no one was doing much of anything, the girl was scooting her bottom across the soft carpet, and this movement somehow morphed into a crawl.  Which doesn't sound miraculous unless you've read previous posts about our developmental delay diagnosis and subsequent baby calisthenics and a certain torturous purple exercise ball, the vision of which frequently reduces my daughter and I to snot and tears.  Because many days, as we attempt the seemingly interminable exercises and Isabel looks at me like she wants to bite me, and I wonder in my head and even aloud if there is ANY POINT to this, it turns out that it was probably actually doing more than just making both of us crazy.
I did not find out about the day's milestone right when I got home--apparently because Brad didn't want to jinx it by making too big a deal out of it (what if Isabel doesn't crawl awhile, I can hear his sturdy brain churning rationally, and my wife punishes me for the next two weeks for being the first to see?)--but later that night, Brad called me into the bedroom. Isabel had scooted to the doorway and apparently had another irresistible urge to situate herself on all fours and crawl several steps toward me, beaming. I dropped to the floor and picked her up, and yes, schmuck that I am, I was crying. She was so freaking proud of herself, her smile literally taking up all of her face.  See, ye of little faith? her sea green eyes seemed to question.  Give me a minute. I was getting to it.
She's on her own timetable.  She thumbs her button nose at babycenter.com, drools liberally on your average fourteen-month-old baby.  Because she is uniquely wonderfully terrifyingly her, not content to fit into whatever box might make it easier, and while she can't yet speak, she's telling me loud and clear she knows it, she feels pretty damn good about it actually, and by the way mom, maybe you should put your big girl pants on. This is only the beginning.

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!

So this is Jack's last day of first grade.  Or as he put it this morning, "I'm 99.9% second- grader already."  Dropping him off with his gifts for his teacher (yes, the boy wrote her a poem) and principal (after realizing how hard a poem was, he went for a more straightforward letter, but it was gorgeous and tear-provoking and contained the word "magical", or "magicil" as he spelled it, but I've never been one for editing my children).  We will miss Hexter Elementary.  I have adored so many people.  I pray we are making the best decision.  As for Isabel, well I think this picture says it all: the girl reminds me daily a.) just how much drool there really is in the world, and b.) what joy looks like.  Guess life continues on whether the milestone chart says you're up to date or not.  Hmm.

Now we charge into the unknown summer, certain to be filled with sweat, tears, and yes possibly a little blood.  I wouldn't have it any other way.