Sunday Photos: Baby Zoe

These are pictures of my Zoë, now 14, at 8 months and about a year.
As you can see, she wasn't tall, but was quite charming. I love babies, and wish I had half a dozen or some such third-world number. In Brazil they say, "A man from Minas Gerais with less then 10 children is a bachelor."

At 9 months we took her to see the 4th of July fireworks. She noticed the moon, and said her first word. Kept repeating it with great excitement, the whole way home, "Moon! Moon! Moon!"

At just about the age in the second picture, she took off walking from that very coffee table. A very methodical, very determined child. She had been standing with support from early infancy, constantly pushing up. Later, she was equally determined to learn to tie her shoes. Worked on it for two days almost without stopping. By Saturday morning, when we were in a furniture store, she tied and untied her shoes about 20 times. That afternoon she annnounced she wanted to learn to read, which she did. She hasn't stopped since.