Getting from here to there

The other day I mentioned seeing some photos on the internet, and Edith interrupted to ask what "the internet" was. We haven't been systematic in teaching her anything computer related, figuring she'd discover cyberspace soon enough. So her understanding of that realm of modern life is rather patchwork at this point.

Sometimes amusingly so. This morning she was typing on the old keyboard she's had as a toy since she was toddling.

"I'm writing a message," she told me.

She pressed some number keys. "I have to put some numbers in for the address."

The keyboard had an extra key with the icon of an envelope on it. She pressed it. "That's the email button. I pressed it. Now the mailman will come to our house and pick up my message, and take it to the right address."

Introducing hmail: All the intimacy of email and the efficiency of the U.S. postal service...brought together for your convenience.

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Alice is generally getting where she wants to go these days, giving us greater insight into her desires. She most often heads for mom or for toys when put down, or for the room with the most action in it. You'll see her coming around the corner in her trademark wounded soldier style, left leg in a regular crawl, right leg bent up so the foot is flat on the floor.

And the next phase clearly is coming soon: The edge of the bathtub and her sister's headboard covered with books and toys inspire her with the insatiable urge to scoot over and pull up to standing. Unlike babies who pull up and then fuss because they don't know how to get back down, Alice readily lets go and falls backward on her head. So we're watching her closely these days. Last night, after watching her pull to standing in the crib and seeing that the top rail came up to her belly, we lowered the crib mattress. Sniff, sigh.

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In other newfound mobility news, Edith has been learning to ride her bike! A little two wheeler with training wheels, the style seemingly preferred over tricycles for this generation's preschoolers. She is very proud of this development and has been motivated to accompany us on dog walks as long as she can ride along. It's a belabored process, occasionally slower than when she was a new walker. In her bright pink princess helmet and the matching kneepads she insists on wearing, Edith is hardly a bold bicyclist. She wants an adult keeping pace next to the handlebars at all times. Even so, she eyes uneven spots in the sidewalk warily and often climbs off the seat to walk her bike past them. She also stops and walks her bike across each driveway crossing, lest she start to roll down the incline into the street. At this pace she often fails to get up sufficient speed to get over uneven joins between sidewalk squares and has to be coaxed to push harder with her feet or barring that, maneuvered by a parental hand to get the wheels turning again. The adult trying to stay close to the handlebars while keeping Bismarck out of the way of the front wheel has quite a task... especially when Alice leans over the edge of the backpack and grabs Edith's helmet.

Still, we were proud of Edith's attitude when she took her first spill into the street and opened up a cut on her knee. (How could she possibly have been going fast enough to fall, you ask? It wasn't speed but a tendency to look at birds and trees as if she were still a passenger in the backseat of the car that caused her to steer off the sidewalk into the grass, pitching over when she did so.) Walking back home with blood trickling down her leg, she cried at first. But by the time we'd gone thirty yards, she had calmed down, was plotting how to cover her scrape so it would be unobstrusive, and was echoing my words about all kids getting skinned knees. "Where does the skin go when you skin your knee, anyway?"