Right Now.

Chapter 19

"Maddie, where do you keep your garlic powder?" Audrey calls from the kitchen.

She's been in there cooking for an hour but won't let me help or even be present in the room with her. I let her do whatever she asks though, so I stay away.

"It should be in the corner cabinet, bottom shelf."

After a few moments pause, she replies. "Oh! I found it! Thank you!"

While Audrey is cooking in the kitchen, I sit on the floor with Christopher, who crawls around playing with random toys. The whole while he's saying beep beep even if he's not playing with a car toy.

Christopher holds up a toy airplane and I say, "Airplane." He looks at me for a second before he looks away and puts the toy down.

He grabs a train toy that has linked on train cars and holds it up to me.

"Train," I tell him. He stares at me for a few seconds before he puts that down and grabs another toy.

"Puppy," I tell him as he holds a plastic dog.

"Car. Beep beep."

Christopher looks at me funny when I put car and beep beep together.

Ca-, beep beep," Christopher says loud and proud.

"Yay Christopher! Car!" I say, excited that he's added another word to his vocabulary.

"Did he just say car?" Audrey asks, appearing in the living room. She has an excited face on.

"Yeah!" I tell her, looking at my kid with adoration.

Christopher throws the car down and gets our full attention because it makes a crashing noise when it hits other toys on the ground.

He picks up the airplane to and holds it out to me, as if he wants me to take it. I'm too far away from him though, and I can't reach it.

"Tain," Christopher says, missing the r in the word.

"Train? Christopher that's an airplane," I tell him, giddy that he said another word. I hardly care that he said the wrong word.

He puts the toy down and just looks at me. Audrey stays in the room with us, watching him.

Christopher starts to crawl towards me and halfway between us, he stops.

As I watch him, he starts to pull his hands closer to his knees. Then he moves his leg so that his foot is on the ground, not his knee. Then he does the same thing with the other.

"Oh my gosh! He's gonna start walking!" Audrey exclaims, excitement written all over her face. I can't even reply with words, only the huge smile on my face.

Finally, Christopher pulls himself upright and stands on his feet. He's a little wobbly, but he begins to walk towards me.

"Good job, Christopher!" I praise, making a smile appear on his face. He keeps walking slowly.

In his fourth step, he trips and falls into the floor, landing with a big thud.

I gasp and as quickly as I can, I try to scoot over to where he is to pick him up. Audrey gets there first since she has working legs and she picks him up and hands him to me. I smile at her.

"It's okay, baby," I coo, trying to calm my hysterical child. He's scream-crying at this point and it makes me want to cry.

I rock him in my arms and try to comfort him. When he starts crying a little less, I pull him away from my chest and hold him in my lap.