Sometimes he walks out ahead. Sometimes he hangs back. And sometimes he tucks himself between my legs like my body is the safest corridor in the neighborhood.

He woke up ready to play. I forgot the formula. He showed me where to begin.

I am not pushing Santa on him. It is not about hating the tradition. I just want his trust to stay clean while his sense of reality is still forming

He began taking steps in late October. Walking is a gift that not everyone gets. He has it, and every day he gives it back to us in abundance.

A purple bib bandana on a cabinet door becomes Malik’s first two-syllable color. A story about movement, trust, and how kids learn the world one cabinet at a time.

A stitched emblem arrives in the mail — The Double M. A mirrored mark of balance, inheritance, and authorship.

Laundry becomes a record of growth. What once fit now folds into memory, and every new reach feels like a door opening.

We turned back toward LAX and made lunch of landings.
He sat between us on the blanket his grandmother made, still and wide-eyed, turning to every roar.

A 13-month-old growls, stomps, and roars.

A reflection on instinct, inheritance, and the things we lose when we learn to fit in.

Time travels differently when you slow down enough to see it.

We didn’t do it by the book. We watched you, took shifts, and listened. Your cries weren’t manipulation. They were communication.

Car. Crow. Blue. Bus. Duck. Girl. Moon. Dog. Mama. Dada. Nana. Box. Even airplane sounds. Your first little dictionary is already bigger than we thought.

He doesn’t just notice the bright ones. The red baby monitor glow. The blue numbers on the oven. Sunlight through the blinds. Like each one is saying hello.

Not because he’s a boy. Because he’s himself. Loud, gentle, curious, serious, precise, quiet, and a taste tester.

You stood still long enough to leave this.

A footprint in the sand.

Brief. Crooked. Perfect.

The tide erased it,

but the shape you’ll leave

is going to last forever.

Birds, by the hundreds.

Pa Pa said there’s usually much more.

You pointed. You kicked your legs.

And for your birthday,

we gave you the sky.

They don’t see the trust, the trying, the time.

This isn’t about one habit — it’s about how parenting lives in the details they never stayed long enough to notice.

My first wedding shoot since becoming a dad. Editing between naps and walks taught me that progress is measured not just in speed, but in care and life lived alongside the work.

We start our second round of goodnights.

First the sky — planes and planets.

Then the walls — memories and moons.

And always last:

“Good night, Malik.”

A letter to my son about the history beneath our sidewalk — the people who were told they could not live here, and what it means to walk these blocks now.