-by MOTHER

My daughter Rachel was a textbook perfect baby, developmentally, and an all-around pleasure in general, until we hit the 6-month mark. That was when she started flying. The first time I found her on the floor in her bedroom, I thought some how she had fallen out of her crib. In panic I searched for broken bones, but she was gurgling happily. I dismissed it. The second time I found her on the changing table, happily sucking on a tushy wipe. She wasn't standing yet, much less climbing. How did she get up there? The answer came clear only a few minutes later. I placed her on a quilt in the TV room, while I was straightening up. She got to her hands and knees, started rocking and took off. She extended her arms and began to glide around the room, cooing in delight. I stood up in amazement from the basket of Legos I was collecting and she landed right in my arms, a big grin on her face. Then she tugged at my blouse to nurse, as though nothing unusual had happened. When my husband came home that night, I told him about it and he didn't believe me. I plucked her from the high chair, put her on the quilt and said, "Hit it, kid." She rolled over and started sucking her toes. I looked at my three year old. "Didn't you see her do it, Jeremy?" "No. Babies can't fly, it's against gravity," he said, my PBS-watching expert. I thought, "Babies don't know anything about gravity. That's what gives them the courage to try to get up and walk with their itty bitty little feet and spindly little legs at the end of their bottom-heavy bodies. If you ever taught a baby physics, it would know there was no way walking, much less flying, was going to work." Well, obviously, no one had told Rachel that babies couldn't fly.

That night as I was nursing her to sleep, I whispered in her ear, "My sweet, my precious, babies cannot fly. The laws of gravity make it perfectly clear that babies cannot fly. Besides, I am really pissed that you made me look like a complete fool in front of Daddy, so don't pull that stunt again!' At about 2 AM, my husband whispered to me. "Rachel is asleep on my chest; how did she get here?" "Have you ever known me to get up in the middle of the night?" "I'm such a light sleeper, I wake up if you turn over." "I'd say she flew in on Baby Airlines." Over breakfast we discussed what we were going to do about this. First thing was to check that we had screens on all the windows. Then we dug out the mosquito netting from the camping gear and secured her bed. "At least we don't have to worry about keeping small sharp objects on the ceiling," I observed. Sam didn't laugh. It was a long day. She was delighted with her new means of locomotion. She flew from room to room, following me as I worked. Not underfoot like the average child, she was literally in my hair all day. I finally put a bowl of Cheerios on top of the china cabinet and she was happy to perch up there will I vacuumed the dining room. The best thing I could say about the flying was it wore her out, so she did take a long nap that afternoon. Sam came home to the smell of hot cider filling the house. "What's the occasion?" "She spit up apple juice on the chandelier." "Well, I brought you a present," he said, pulling out a bag from the corner pet store. "A dog collar to put around her waist, and a long leash, to keep her from floating away in the yard. "

And so it went. She floated through life, and we chased after her. I never knew quite where I'd find her. Stuck up the chimney, playing with boxes on the top shelf of the closet, pricking her finger on the hooks in the drapes, or gliding gracefully into a sinkful of soapy water. When she took to dive-bombing the dog, we knew we had had enough. Jeremy had taken to playing under his bed, or putting up an umbrella when he watched TV. We finally had to imprison her in an overturned playpen when we didn't have time to police her antics. This didn't mean she wasn't doing normal baby things as well as the months went on. For example, she played The Throw-It-On-The-Floor-And-Cry-Until-Someone-Gets-It-For-You Game. This is a very exciting game as a child first develops hand-eye coordination, to reach and grasp things. This is a very exciting game when a child learns to communicate the specific item it wants through pointing and simple sounds. It is not a very exciting game for a mother after about 15 minutes, particularly when it is played in a high chair with a sippy cup and a bowl of Cheerios. This is when a very excited (read here: screaming) mother teaches a child its first simple lessons about gravity. "Throw it down one more time and it is not coming back!" Physical development, though, was magical. Rachel continued to get up on her knees and rock, and as the muscles filled out in her little calves, the rocking turned to creeping and the creeping turned to crawling. Her legs grew day by day, becoming straight and strong. Her little arms were growing too. Soon she was pulling herself to a stand on anything that would hold her weight, and a few things, like wastebaskets and rocking chairs, that wouldn't. And she was learning that things would fall over. There was that pesky gravity thing again. Language skills began. First it is just crying; something is wrong. Then they added laughing; something is nice. Then grunts and whines to indicate degree of pleasure or aggravation. Then one day a light bulb goes off in the little mind and they realize that they can imitate the sound you are making. In the beginning it's a game of copycat, but soon they begin to associate syllables with things, and they develop a collection of words. They string two words together and ta-da, a simple sentence, or more likely a simple command. Rachel had her little vocabulary: Mama, blanky, nurse, and the ever-present NOW! But soon along came the swope into my arms with an "UP!" and the glide to the floor with a "DOWN!" Here she was, learning words for gravity. It was exciting to see the muscle tone develop in her little limbs as she exercised them all day at play. And she became more confident in her pull-ups as she developed a sense of balance. I saw Jeremy coaching her one day. She had pulled herself up on the coffee table and was wobbling. He watched critically and gestured with his hands: "A little to the left... a little to the right. No, no, no, you are over-compensating. Keep that head centered over your body; not too far forward, not too far back. You're putting too much weight on your arms, make your legs bear the weight. Are your feet flat on the floor? A lot of beginners stand on tiptoe, no good, not good at all, kills the arches of your feet. Center your head over your body, your body over your feet, your feet flat on the floor!!" I figured Jeremy ought to know; it wasn't too long ago he was learning the drill himself. Did he realize he was teaching her gravity? Rachel seemed to be absorbing the lessons. She steadied herself, hesitatingly lifted one hand from the table, then the other, looked proudly at her big brother and clapped in delight. And promptly tumbled over on her padded little bottom. Her lip quivered, and I fully expected her to fly over to me for some comfort and mama-loving. But she didn't. She looked at Jeremy, grabbed the table edge with both pudgy fists and pulled herself up again. With a set look on her face she let go once more, balanced a few moments, grabbed the edge again, lowered herself down, and crawled away with a look of satisfaction on her face. She found her blanky, flew up to the light fixture and cuddled up to watch Sesame Street with her brother. Day by day her confidence grew. Soon leaning against the table to play with a toy was commonplace, and shuffling around the coffee table, holding on for dear life, but working her way around it nonetheless was added to the repertoire. Inside her little baby brain was a compulsion for locomotion, a compulsion to get upright. It was the week of her first birthday: We were sitting in the TV room. She was over by the sofa. Her blanky was next to me by the rocker. She pulled herself up on the coffee table and said "Blanky." Then she let go of the table and took three steps, no hands, all by herself, towards me and tumbled down. "You walked! Jeremy, she walked! What a good Rachel, what a wonderful Rachel! I'm so proud of you." She got to her knees and crawled to the blanky. Then she pulled herself to a stand on the chair, and said "up" to get into my lap, where she was kissed and hugged and praise to the skies. Well, the rest of the day was a festival of walking. She couldn't wait to try it again. She was just delighted that she had gotten the whole shtick together - the head placement, the foot alternating, the arms out. By the time Daddy got home she was doing 10 or 12 steps at a time. By her birthday party that Saturday she was meeting guests at the door, saying "Hi!" and snatching gifts out of their hands. But the end of the month she was running in the yard and laughing under the sun with the other children from around, not a baby anymore, but a toddler, a kid, a person in her own right. I was watching her in the sandbox that summer, when I realized Jeremy was watching me. "You know, she never flew again after she learned to walk," I sighed. "Oh Mom, don't you understand? We can't learn to walk until we figure out gravity, and anyone who know about gravity... knows a baby can't fly."