Tiny moments

Happy Thanksgiving to USA-ians; happy Thursday to everyone else.

Last night Mabel slept soundly from her initial going-to-sleep (around 8.00, or earlier; I think I dropped off there for a few minutes myself) all the way to past 11.00. This may not sound like much to you, but she has been religiously needing to be re-settled first 20 minutes, then 40, then stretching to an hour after she first went down every night for her Entire Life. Maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Either way, it was a tiny Thanksgiving miracle. She took what felt like the rest of the night to get back to sleep again, and then at 4am I had to go and comfort Monkey, who'd had a bad dream about Pippi Longstocking (as you do), so it wasn't the best night ever, but it was a start.

However, the wee small hours are not the tiny moments I was thinking of.

Yesterday we went to one of the local playgrounds before it got too dark. This one has a small carpark right beside the playground itself, with the carpark "road" running around its perimeter, so kids still can't just run from car to swings without looking. I had to change Mabel's unsuitable shoes for her runners, and as Monkey was already out of the car, and since there was nobody else around and there were no other cars in sight, I told him he could go on over to the playground without us. But, to make the point, I cautioned him still to make sure he was crossing safely.

As I glanced up, I saw him stand conscienciously at the edge of the marked spaces and look carefully right and left in the deserted carpark.

When we joined him on the other side, he was chuffed. He beamed at me. "Now I can do that all times." I didn't want to deflate him, but I had to add some caveats: only when I say you can, and not even every time at this playground, only when it's empty enough. It was such a tiny thing to me to give him - the chance to walk a few yards unaccompanied - and yet to him it was the opening up of a whole new world of responsibility and grown-upness.