My son Kristopher was pointing his toe like a ballerina.
Down on all fours at the top lip of our house’s central staircase, my one-year-old had side-crawled himself into position before sending out an exploratory foot to find the step below. Watching with arms outstretched, I chanted fatherly encouragement as he tentatively found purchase, allowing him to pivot his tiny body into position and slide backwards towards me.
He dropped to the step with a slack fluidity, and then the one after that, regularly shoulder-checking like he was backing up a garbage truck. As I marveled at his newfound grace and speed, it occurred to me that if he was beginning to acquire an alphabet’s worth of physical literacy letters, then I was witnessing his ABCs.