Milestones

Khubz is standing up now with ease and confidence.
She is 29 inches long and weighs 21 lbs. At 10 months old she is

• Making the sign for "leche"
• Saying mamamamamama to us both
• Getting a spoon into her mouth--even though its the wrong end of the spoon
• Playing patty cake
• Clapping when she is pleased with herself
• Turning the volume up on the stereo
• Pulling things out--toys out of the toy box, clothes out of the basket, wipes out of the wet wipes container. . .
• Banging the icecream scoop on pots & pans
• Waving bye-bye when Scully drops her off at daycare
• Cleaning lint and pieces of dust and errant pieces of stuff off the floor by picking things up and eating them.

Scully often asks if I am not "over-reflective" about things (particularly motherhood.) Just to prove she's right I've been thinking about milestones I remember from growing up. At each stage I thought I had achieved "womanhood"

• When Mom had me put an apron on, rather than taking my shirt off, when we would have spaghetti (age 6ish?)
• When I stopped wearing pants/shorts and started wearing skirts almost exclusively (age 10ish?)
• When I started brushing my own hair (age 8sih?)
• When I no longer had to take baths with my sister Joe--even if Mom was running short on time. ( I earned this right to decline the group bath when i turned 7. I actually negotiated it as a birthday present.)
• When I started wearing a tarha/hijab (age 11)
• When I walked into the gym, rather than sitting in my car in the parking lot & looking back and forth between the gym and the bakery next door (not disclosing this one)
• When I went out to dinner with a group of 40 arab dykes I had previously only known through the queer/arab/woman email list (age 25)
• When my brother & I got to go see a movie in a movie theatre by ourselves (age 9)
• When I started shaving my legs (age 10)
• When I stopped shaving my legs (age 18)
• When I voted for the first time (and then voting for the first time with my daughter) (age 18 and 29)
• When watching yesterday's senate hearing on gonzales and understanding how fucked up everything is. Contrasting this with memories of my parents watching the iran/contra/oliver north hearings and me repeatedly saying "what's going on? who is that guy? when will "Diffrent Strokes" come back on??"