Sunshine of your love

So stay-at-home dad is standing in the wood holding the pushchair, while the dog runs around under the oak trees. S- has stopped about 10 feet away and is looking at me, waiting.

She’s so tiny and cute, and stubborn – but I’m not actually thinking about that. I’m actually thinking about what H-, one of our friends, said recently in a similar situation: ‘Of course, the idea of a path only comes a lot later.’

I hadn’t seen it in that way before, but now it seems blindingly obvious. S- doesn’t know that we’re following a path. She doesn’t understand, and nor does she care, that we’ve actually decided to go in this direction.

The world these days has reference points that she recognises: the ’svings’, the moooos, the car, and so on. But beyond that she doesn’t yet think in straight lines – she’s an explorer, not a traveller – and it’s simply puzzling to be asked, with increasing sharpness, to ‘hurry up’ or ‘come this way’. [Not to mention amusing to run off in the other direction and to have daddy come chasing after her!] She needs to be guided, not force-marched.

I crouch and hide behind the pushchair. ‘Boo,’ I say, reappearing from the other side. ‘Boo,’ I say again, and then I wait a minute. Then I say, ”Hello S-’, and I wave. Her face breaks into a big, joyous smile, and she lurches off her heels and comes tumbling towards me.