...Yes, I do regularly feel gratitude for my limbs and health and eyesight (very poor but there!) and my ability to walk, or use both arms, or my ability to think and even feel joy in response to music. I've had this awareness a long time, even before coming online and reading the thoughts of people with disabilities regularly. I can't say where the impulse to check myself and feel lucky for those things I have came from, but I'm glad I have it. And I'm glad that I can look at this little one and see such unbridled joy in being simply being, in being loved, in moving about, in music, in concrete, in garbages and in tearing apart every roll of paper goods in the 'hood, she's happy when she's doing it, and she is such a great daily reminder of Where It Is At.

When she first began walking, she would just throw her hands high up in the air and launch herself forward, falling after a few steps. But it was so hilarious to see her just abandon herself to effort. She knew she would fall, and her hands up in the air as she made those first few steps seemed to say "All out, I'm goin' allll out!" There's a lot to admire about her spirit.

She watches and you think you are aware of all the times she watches...but you are not. You just can't be. Because she is always watching. And you forget. Until you see her doing something and you are like "where the hell did she learn that?" Por ejemplo, we were at the dinner table, some tortillas with chorizo, some sour cream, she begins putting her hands in the sour cream (we give her no chorizo but she does dig avacado, and anyway had other foodstuffs) and putting it on her head! She starts putting sour cream on her head while we are sitting there at the dinner table, she does it very purposefully, and then begins smoothing it onto her cabeza!!! And her mother is like "Hunh? What is she doing?" And then we began cracking up as we realized she was imitating me using gel, when I stand in the bathroom mirror and comb and tie my hair back.

Man. She is funny.

And she loves albums. I have two turntables (and yes, a microphone!), and the radio stations I can pick up here are a bit irritating, so I play a lot of records. Meanwhile, it's funny because Lil 'Nita doesn't care if the radio is on, even if she likes the song, she isn't happy until I put an LP on the turntable. She likes to see me drop the needle down, she likes that it spins around, she likes the red light on the record, she likes the record, and pulling them out of the sleeves. I will play the radio and she will motion and make noise for me to pick her up and take her over to the stereo, where she will wave her arms as if she is dancing. She will point to the turntable, again even if the radio is on. So I will turn off the radio and put an album on, and she will wave her arms and be happy.

I feel like together, we are throwing a red rubber monkey wrench in the fine and fragile digital gears of technological progress and hypershortened product lifespans (are Sony discplayers/recorders obsolete already? And camcorders, the Sony TRV-900—discontinued?? And so is the 950, before I got a chance to use it at all!). I can't tell you how much it thrills me. Let the rest come and go, but VINYL MUST LIVE ON!

She has also begun to try and figure out what "Ow" means. One of us will yell it, having stepped on a tack or something, you know, bone spur, banged head, whatever. She isn't quite sure what the "ow" means, though. She's tried it when annoyed, sitting at her chair, not wanting to eat anymore. She'll sweep her hands back and forth, throwing any loose food onto the floor, say loudly "Ow!" But if you think about it, she's got it right. It means pain. Pain, discomfort...anger is pain, if your normal state is walking around grinning and laughing and singing. And 'Nita gets angry when you try to feed her food she doesn't want! Which is good.

But it's kind of funny, I get reports when mi novia comes home. Luna was testing out her "ow" in public. People whirling around in supermarkets to see what happened, who got hurt. Luna loves people. She smiles so sweetly at them. I wonder what is going through their heads when they turn, alarmed, and get that big smile.

What a trip, living with Lunita!