The video I posted for Clover today is amazing. Well, the video itself is dark and grainy, and it is distinctly a family film, not really much of interest to anyone not in love with em.
I guess I will just put it here.
However, when we first saw Clover do what we recorded, my heart clinched up and I started to cry. I didn’t understand it fully until today, after having slept on it.
The gist of it is, Clover uses this ribbon e got from a present, and puts one end of it in eir ear and say, “Hello.” Or “heyrow!” It is amazing, and adorable, and it terrifies me.
I spend all day watching Clover. Sometimes I interact with em, sometimes I observe and protect (like a robo-parent-cop). I try to capture all these little quirks of em growing up, out of curiosity and a lot more out of the need to record my spawn doing neat and new (to em) stuff. It is very rewarding. I feel like I can get over my feelings about my childhood if I am able to be a part of Clover’s.
But the thing is, I only talk through the phone with an earbud. And when I answer the phone I start it by saying a slightly exaggerated hello. It is a salutation and a sound check. And Clover has watched me close enough that e is able to emulate that before being able to walk.
I am not upset that Clover learned something from me that is kinda silly. I am sure there will be plenty of things like that. E already has an impressive range of hand movements when e talks, and that is only gonna get worse with age and enthusiasm, and actually using words. I am okay with that.
Except, okay, I am not. It hadn’t dawned on me, or rather my heart, that Clover would learn stuff from me in that way. Clover is going to see me in ways I can’t imagine, and that lack of comprehension in my imagination gland really freaked me out.
I am better now. Probably. Every time I turn away, Clover grows so much. It is beautiful, and I am not used to being so close to something like this.