Eléa, circa ten months of age. Eléa is getting to be a big girl now. The circumference of one of her thighs is the same as that of an adult neck. She looks poised to enter a career as a infant wrestler; which is all well and good, as we enjoy wrestling with her.
Abuelo and abuela recently came to pay her a visit, as you will be able to tell by looking at some of the photos in this blog. They took her to Central Park where Eléa frolicked (or, more accurately, staggered about) on the lawn and had her first taste of sand at the toddlers' playground. Mmmmmm.....freshly dredged from the East River riverbed!
She is beginning to add a few "d" and "n" consonant-like sounds to her now well-established repertoire, which consists primarily of "m," "b," and a number of vowels that she is very happy to practice in the loudest voice possible at 6:00 in the morning. I have no doubt in my mind that our (now) sleepless neighbors are as happy as we are to witness her linguistic progress. Why just the other day the lady from the apartment next door gave little Eléa a gift: a very thick 8 by 14 foot sheet of insulation material. I thought it was a strange gift, but it was very kind of her none the less.
Eléa has begun to walk with the help of a small pushcart. Purchased at Ikea and probably named after a mountain in northern Scandinavia—something like Mønt Swødøsh Meøtbøls—the cart has become Eléa's newest vehicle for exploration. She scurries about the apartment as though she is on her way to some exciting destination. Of course, since she has yet to be indoctrinated into the goal orientation of our workaday world, our daughter takes great pleasure in the journey itself, stopping frequently during her sojourns to smell the roses (or, more accurately, to stuff a plant leaf into her mouth, bang on a chair, or try squeezing in between the wall and refrigerator).
Even at this young age Eléa is already exhibiting a great appreciation for fine literature. Watching her carefully select books from the shelves (and then seeing her stuff them under the bookcase or couch), one might get the impression that she has not yet developed a discriminating mind. We would like to think that it is simply a sign of her openness to different genres. Eléa is probably like Sara Palin in this respect: she reads everything. However, merely passing her eyes over the printed text is not enough for this eager little learner. No, she feels compelled to deeply ingest (and digest) whatever literature she has chosen for her afternoon's reading. Just yesterday her father stepped out of the room for a moment and, upon his return, found a sizable piece missing from the soggy cover of One Hundred Years of Solitude. He is still not sure whether this is an indication of the critic's approval or disapproval.
