M
y daughter has yet to take her first steps. We’ve exhausted every method, from propping her up against the fridge and encouraging her to come to us, to enticing her with treats and shiny objects, including her most desired possession: the TV remote control.
To make it even more enticing, I make sure the batteries are still in place. It’s a mystery how my 16-month-old, who can’t walk or talk yet, has such an intuitive understanding of electronics. She not only prefers the one functional remote control out of the many we own, but she also knows that when I remove the batteries, it becomes useless to her.
Even this shiny lure fails to motivate her to take her first steps. In a moment of desperation, I wrote a column about her struggles with walking around two months ago. It wasn’t my intention to shame her with public attention. However, I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon that I call the Column Problem Paradox.
Simply put, whenever I write about a problem or phenomenon, it miraculously disappears by the time the article is published a week later. Ailments that come and go, passions that flare up and fade away. My son’s obsession with saying only the word ‘Deeto’ vanished by the time readers got to read about it. Even his excitement for throwing the bin in the bath waned when readers mentioned it to me on publication day.
Of course, this is easily explained. Kids engage in peculiar behavior for short periods, and then move on to something else. However, over time, I started to believe in some kind of clairvoyance on my part, attributing this mundane coincidence to my writing prowess. But when I tried to employ my journalistic powers to make my daughter walk, it was as futile as her tiny bottom hitting the kitchen floor.
Her three baby cousins have all started walking since we last discussed this, and I’m starting to feel a tinge of embarrassment about sharing a video of her taking her first steps. It’s comparable to a skincare brand announcing they’ve severed ties with an arms dealer, making you question why they were partnered in the first place. In the same way, I fear that sharing a video of my daughter walking when she’s old enough to operate a forklift legally might raise more questions than it answers.
We find ourselves back at the fridge, with me holding the remote. She stares, laughs, and crawls energetically towards me. But I shouldn’t worry. I have a touch of magic in my fingertips, and two columns should do the trick. By the time you read this, she’ll be walking, I can sense it.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly is now available (Little, Brown, £16.99). Get your copy from guardianbookshop for only £14.78.
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
Denial of responsibility! VigourTimes is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
