September 22, 2026- Hana got a thumbs-up from her pediatrician today, at her 9-month visit. Doc even referred to Hana as “The Boss”, for her outspoken babbling, that had a tome of authority. Most importantly, the little girl is hitting all the markers, which I have described over the past few days. She even took three steps without support, earlier today.

Hana is also showing a sense of humour about herself. When her father mimicked a few sounds she was making, she looked at him and burst into laughter. She does get cranky when she’s tired, but otherwise, my granddaughter is in some ways a mirror of my mother, and she can give it back, albeit in the babbling of a nine-month old.

So, she enters the last quarter of her first year, as our hemisphere begins autumn. The next three months will bring four lateral incisors, a growing sense of individuality and the first meaningful steps.

HANA’S NOTE- I wore a dress to my doctor’s office. It made me look special, Mommy said.

EXPANDING CIRCLES: Louisiana- The Pelican State is said to be floating on borrowed time. A friend from Slidell recently told me that the biggest mistake people have made there was not providing means for irrigation, as the levees, while protecting low-lying areas, were also drying out the soil in those areas.

Louisiana is Texas’s neighbour to the east. The Turf- Most of the state is of fairly low elevation, with the area around the mouths of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers being below sea level. This has been borne out most vividly, and tragically, in extreme weather events like Hurricanes Camille, in 1969, Katrina and Rita, in 2005 and Laura, in 2020.

First Nations- Louisiana is the ancestral home of the Atakapa, Caddo, Chitimacha, Choctaw, Houma, Natchez and Tunica peoples. After European settlement, the Alabama, Biloxi, Coushatta and Ofo people were pushed into the area. Today, the Chitimacha, Coushatta, Houma and Tunica-Biloxi Nations, as well as Jena Band of the Choctaw Nation, have reservations in the state. The Choctaw were largely among the displaced who were forced to go northwest to Oklahoma, in the dead of winter, during Andrew Jackson’s forced relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes. The Jena Band were those who escaped into the piny woods and bayous. Poverty Point, Watson Brake and Campus Mounds are sites of burial mounds of the Caddo and even earlier peoples.

I have been to New Orleans, three times; once was specifically for Mardi Gras (2015). The other visits were briefer, due to transit needs. Baton Rouge and Alexandria were the sites of a longer visit, at the time of Hurricane Laura (2020). On that occasion, I was volunteering with the Red Cross, at a storm shelter. Lake Charles, Vidalia, Monroe and Shreveport are other communities in which I’ve stopped. Each of these would be worth a visit with Hana, especially the Mounds, the area around Lake Pontchartrain and the Garden District of New Orleans. I would also like to spend a few days in Lafayette, absorbing the Zydeco and Cajun sounds. Preservation Hall, in New Orleans would be a destination, as well.

Where I feel most at home: Alexandria, Lake Charles, the Garden District and French Quarter, south side of Baton Rouge, Vidalia.

NEXT: New Mexico