“Look Auntie! Come look!” Oh dear, this child is going to keep distracting me, the clouds are coming in, albeit slowly but I want to get these weeds out of the gravel and plant the new Bougainvillea before it rains. She’s stooping beside the pink rosebush, her tiny toes crunched in the dirt, one hand clutching a dried leaf and the other pointing at some invisible thing by the roses.

Standing carefully, as that’s how I do it now, I brush the dirt from my hands, wait for the ground to stop moving from my vertigo and walk over to her. “What is it sweetie?” “Look! See it?” I bend forward, Lord knows I didn’t want to have to stoop again, my eyes squinting at the spot her chubby fingers pointed. Nothing. “I don’t see it, are you pointing at the flower?” “No! See it?” I touch a leaf, the dew still sitting on it, “This?”

“Nooooo” her tiny voice now pitchy as she gains frustration from my inability to see what she’s pointing at.

My back is getting sore from bending so I might as well put my ass on the stones. Ugh, pants are not stretchy enough for trying this. Ok, legs crossed, sitting safely and very puzzled I push my head forward next to her hand. The sun was just pushing to the top of the trees, and something glinted. There between two delicate branches of the rosebush is a spiderweb! “Oh my goodness Cece, is this what you’re looking at?” “Yes…see it?” I see it; a fragile web with dewdrops along its threads, barely hanging on in the slight breeze.

“What’s that? she asks.

“It’s a spiderweb baby, isn’t it beautiful?”

“What’s a piderweb?”

And so it begins.

For now I dream about those coming days, the opportunity to share moments, explain the sometimes unexplainable. Most of all I look forward to pausing in her world and learning to see through those eyes of wonder, and enjoy the little things while building memories. Seven weeks and counting!