I am determined

Six-month old Jimmy rattled the rails of his crib. He wanted out! He wanted out! He used his upper arms to pull on the rails but he wasn’t strong enough, not yet at least. His mommy towered over him with her polyester summer bathrobe and her pointy silver glasses. She scared Jimmy, she was so tall and he was so little. He wished his mommy was more his size.

Then a really, really long month passed that took forever. Jimmy was now seven months old and he could crawl around on the floor and in his crib. Jimmy didn’t take naps so he spent a lot of time crawling around the perimeter of his crib, but of course Jimmy didn’t know what a perimeter was. Jimmy didn’t even speak sentences yet, just cooing and cawing like most seven-month old babies did. He smiled a lot, even if he spent afternoons awake crawling around in his crib.

Then an even longer month passed and Jimmy was now eight months old. Jimmy could practically stand and his arms were getting stronger. He could lift himself up with his arms on the rails of his crib and he could almost – almost, but not quite – almost climb up the rails. He wanted out!

Every day Jimmy practiced and practiced lifting himself up and out. Mommy watched TV in the afternoons. She ran around the house all morning doing Gosh darn only knows what and then she settled down in the afternoon for something on TV about the sands of time and a funny looking blue hourglass. Jimmy kept practicing because he wanted out.

They had Christmas and they had New Year’s and it was now January 1964. Jimmy got stronger with all the attention from his grandparents during the holidays and Jimmy knew, it wouldn’t be long before he climbed out of the crib. So one day, when Mommy was watching her soap operas about the sands of time and the funny blue hourglass, Jimmy climbed and climbed and huffed and puffed and pulled and pushed and reached the top. But then he fell back and cried and Mommy came over and picked him up and put him back. He started over, climbed and climbed, huffed and puffed, pulled and pushed. This time when he reached the top over he went!

And he was free, but then he didn’t know what to do on the other side except cry for his mommy.