Milestones

Lacy, my niece, just turned twenty.  The fact, I think, bummed Greg out a little.  You know, the whole "it all goes too fast, blink and they're twenty," thing.  I started playing the numbers game in my head: Greg's fifty, Lacy's twenty.  When Dylan's twenty, I'll be fifty-five.  Fifty-five!  I'll probably be wearing those gigantic side-flap sunglasses that old people get at the optometrist's office and peeing ten times a night by then.

Dylan just turned three.  This fact didn't bum me out at all, although I couldn't quite match her enthusiasm for a birthday party.  We decided to combine everything Dylan loves into one party: cupcakes, Easter eggs, and presents (basically: candy, candy, and presents).  Her presents were a great representation of her very princess-girly side and her country-girl side.  Along with a ton of dolly's and dresses, she also received a pair of chinks (Chaps, for you city-folks.  Quit dialing the ACLU.) and a huge Lego set.  The day after her party, I thought I'd step out the back door of the house and shoot a few squirrels.  Dylan was still in full party mode and wearing, I think, her party dress from the day before.  When I told her what I was doing, she wanted to come with me.  "Let me get my dolly first, Daddy," Dylan told me.  Dolly's and dead squirrels, together at last.

Grady, too, has hit a milestone.  Sort of.  I'd written about Dylan at nine months (75% in weight, 95% in height) and I remember her as a pretty big baby.  Maybe big isn't right: solid is more fitting.  She was often called a boy by strangers, and on several occasions, I got a, "Oh, he's going to be a good football player."  Grady is just big.  At his nine-month check-up last week, he was 95% in weight and 60% in height.  Kind of a flip-flop of Dylan, and he's never been confused for a girl, but I do get, "Oh, he's going to be a football."  I hope they mean football player, but he very well could be the football.  He's shaped for it anyway.  He's all hips, thighs, and smiles.

This morning, Regina and I watched Grady as he toppled over from a sitting positing, then struggled, like an upside down turtle, to get himself righted.  He finally got himself in a comfortable position and grinned at us.  "I love that he's staying a baby for so long," Regina told me.  I hadn't thought of that.  I'm always wondering, "What's next?" -- teeth, crawling, school, girlfriends, cars, graduation, twenty -- when I should be looking at what is now.  Maybe I'll do that a little more often, as soon as I can find my giant side-flap sunglasses.