Important things

I spent my Saturday with Mbalia. She practiced blubbering on my leg, feeding herself carrots, and sticking her tongue out. She spent some time inspecting the small black dot that is the eye of her cute orange duck. She sucked on the tag of a stuffed ladybug, made that cute wrinkled nose face I love and shouted momomomomom and mb mb in a surprisingly firm voice.

She crawled fast and rolled over slow. She laid down calmly by my side while we rested and hit me in the face with excitement when it was time to get up. She slobbered and gurgled and laughed. She tried to eat the camera whenever I wanted to take her picture.

We spoke Lingala and French and English and even made up some words that exist in a language we haven't heard of yet. She made beep beep sounds while banging on her steering wheel. She tapped containers on the wall and the floor so that they would sound just so. She hit the table tops at just the right angle to make her bracelets clink.

And these were all important things.