A Weekend with Noni

For the past two days, Dinka has been at a resort in Vermont getting massages, watching movies and enjoying the newly arrived summer. This was her Mother's Day gift from Veronika and me, not Vermont specifically but a trip of at least twenty-four hours away from us, which she hadn't had since Veronika was born. Before you comment on how thoughtful and unselfish this gift was and what a wonderful husband I am, let me get to the point of my story--the last two days have been pure magic.

Veronika and I had such a good time together. On Friday we spent the day at the Bronx Zoo, where I was able to show her the real animals behind all the sounds and pictures from her books. It was a hot and humid day and the zoo was teeming with thousands of agitated and vocal middle-school field trippers (God bless those chaperones, they are brave people) but we just floated around them, Noni's eyes widening in amazement at the sight of a sleeping tiger and finally understanding why the books make such a big deal about giraffes. Today we had a lot of downtime to recover from yesterday's excitement but it was no less fun. For the first time since she was born, I had her to myself from her first words in the morning (calling for me! "Papa... Papa...") to tucking her in at night. I prepared her meals, picked out her clothes and planned her day and I couldn't have been any happier doing it.

Veronika is so grown up now that you do things with her instead of just bringing her along. She interacts with everything around her and tells you what she thinks and wants, likes and dislikes. She has so many words at her command now (and more with each day) that you can almost have a conversation with her the whole time. She's also learning how to express herself in a wider array of situations through reproducing what she hears us saying, like the scolding tone she takes with Digby and the exasperated sigh she uses when something goes wrong. Plus she wants to do everything herself lately and with a little help, she's usually very good. It's really a blast. Now, when I get the opportunity to spend some time with her, my mind spins at the thought of all the things in the world I'd like to show her and do with her. I also realized that the only reason I ever don't completely love every second of my time with her is because something else gets in the way. Either I have to work when she wants to climb all over me or I'm in a rush to pick her up from the babysitter and get her in bed or she needs to say goodnight to everything in the living room and I haven't slept enough to have patience for it... you get the idea. If you take all of that interference out of the way, every moment with her is pure gold and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Finally and in all fairness to Dinka and her occasional frustration with spending every hour of the day with Veronika, I realized that Veronika definitely behaves differently with each of us, and Dinka's getting the short end of the stick right now. With Mama around she is always seeing how much she can get away with and letting her smallest wishes be made perfectly clear; with Papa, all of that disappears. I think she cried twice all weekend--once after bumping her head on a chair and the other time when waking up with a full diaper--and almost never whined. Yesterday she spent a lot of time in a hot car and in a stroller in the zoo but I didn't hear any complaints. She went to sleep without a peep and happily ate all of her meals (not because I was starving her, I hope). I took her to church and she was an angel, nothing but cute looks at the neighboring people, whispers and smiles (believe it or not, this is not always the case when we go as a family). I realize that this situation is unfair to Dinka but I have to say that getting the preferential Papa treatment makes me feel like a hundred dollars.

I hope Dinka had such a good time in Vermont that she doesn't realize how selfish that present I gave her actually was.