I set the small slide down and settled nearby.

She climbed, slid down, climbed, slid again.

On her fourth climb, she stopped and said, “Thank you, Mama.”

A first; I had not expected spontaneous gratitude to appear as a cognitive milestone, or to bring me to tears when it did.

Patrice St. James writes creative nonfiction. She is from California, but lives in Massachusetts with her husband and daughter, where she enjoys most of the seasons.