Lil Bits

Letter to B - Month Fifteen - Addendum

Dear Brooks, 

There are a couple of things I forgot to put in your fifteenth month letter.  This is probably because I only alotted 30 minutes to write it.  Regardless, there are some additional things I'd like to document about you, so here goes:

1)  Your favorite books.  You are currently obsessed with anything Sandra Boynton, most notably, Moo Baa La La La, Barnyard Dance, and Let's Dance Little Pookie.   Other favorites include The Snowy Day, One Fish Two Fish Three Four Five Fish, and anything interactive where there is a flap for you to flip or a lever for you to pull.  Clifford the Big Red Dog still remains at the top of list.  

2)  Your new tricks.  Not only do you wave "bye-bye" regularly, even before someone is actually leaving as if you're telling them that you are over this conversation and it's time for them to go, but you also blow kisses.  This consists of you putting the center of your palm smack-dab in the middle of your mouth with your fingers outstretched so that they completely cover your eyes, and then you say "mmmmMMMMMMMWAHH!" and sharply outstretch your hand.  Cutest thing ever.  You also still pat your hair when prompted and you did, in fact, accidentally poke yourself in the eye when trying to get to your nose.  I've quit asking you where your nose is.  

3)  Your new words.  Your repertoire now consists of mama, dada, book, apple, bubba (bubble), meh (milk), no, boo boo (you've received your first of many knee scrapes) and uh-oh (I'm not sure that one counts).  And you are showing comprehension of blueberry, strawberry, water, cracker, sheepie and bear (those are your best buds).  

You had your 15 month check-up at the doctor this morning and except for a minor possiblity that you have a milk allergy, everything is fantastic.  We are going to be playing with your diet a bit over the next few weeks to see for sure.  

You also got a vaccine this morning.  I have a love/hate relationship with vaccines for many reasons, but the worst is holding you down while you're screaming, looking to me for help, and I can't give it to you.  It's horrible.  But I have a lot of issues with the way vaccines are created these days, I've spent months researching the topic, and we've created a specialized vaccination plan for you.  I really hope that by the time you have children things will be better.  I just realized that in order for that to happen, I should probably get more involved with this issue.  Please reference your 15 month letter to see why that won't happen right now.  

But.  My point.  Tonight the three of us were supposed to attend a wedding.  I even bought you an adorable seersucker outfit and I'd bet you were the cutest 15 month old on the planet for the hour you were in it.  We all loaded in the car, drove all the way across town, and about twenty minutes away from the destination, we heard (and smelt) you throw up in the back seat.  (GOOD GOD, THE SMELL.)  Up until that point, you had never thrown up in your life.  We pulled over and damn if you aren't a strategic little puker.  Apparently you had leaned over to the side and done your business in the seat and there was not a speck on you.  You were perfectly clean, smiling, and happy.  

So we pushed on.  And right as we were pulling into the parking lot, you puked again.  So we quit.  Conceded.  Turned around and drove an hour all the way home and with dad in his suit and me in my cocktail dress, we pulled through In N Out Burger.  I haven't been that dressed up in MONTHS.  I was so exhausted today and it took every ounce of energy in me to exert that much effort on my appearance, so I think it's absolutely comical that my night ended up at a fast food joint.    

When we got home, you had some chicken noodle soup and went straight to bed.  I stood and stared at your perfect sleeping face for awhile.  Now it's raining, I'm in my pajamas, and Dad and I are about to snuggle up and watch a movie, so this night has turned out nicely afterall.  Maybe you did this on purpose.  Thank you for that.   (Although I'm still blaming that nasty vaccine as vomiting is a common side effect.  Boo hiss.)  

Love, 
Mama 

 

Letter to B - Month Fifteen

Dear Brooks,

Dude. What the hell is going on with this month. This morning I felt like I was on the precipice of a breakdown as the wheels are definitely coming off of this operation. Like I’m a bus, sluggishly making its way down the freeway until the wheels just fly off, the car spins around into a point of disintegration and all that’s left is the little engine put-put-puttering, smoking, and even though everything else has fallen apart, it won’t quit. Like my heart. Put-put-puttering with so much love for you that I still get up every day and wade through this water. EVEN THOUGH IT’S NECK-DEEP.
 

I know I say something like this every month, but life has truly reached an all new level of insanity. Not only did I just accept the biggest promotion of my career, but we are closing on our new house in less than three weeks, we just got our current house listed for lease, and have I mentioned how much I hate your canine teeth? In all honesty, I love every single centimeter of you, but I am totally pissed at your canine teeth. When you got your first teeth, you were hardly fazed. But these damn canines. These damn canines have made for some very exhausting nights for all of us. One night you woke up screaming at 1am and you were in such pain that nothing consoled you. At one point, you were just walking around your room, aimlessly, crying, moaning, as if you were saying “make it stop! My GOD!” And then you bent down and bit your own arm. While I think that made your teeth feel better, you did not like what it did to your arm, and you started WAILING until I scooped you up and GAVE YOU MY FOREARM. You bit into it so hard and for so long, and when you released, you leaned back, sighed, and looked at me like “oh thank heaven. That felt marvelous. Finally.” Do you know how much it breaks my heart that you were in such pain that you BIT YOURSELF? And do you know how much I love you to allow you to do the same to me? I still have a bruise.

We were actually in the process of weaning you from your pacifier when your canines starting showing up and all of that went to hell. You are now so unbelievably attached to your pacifier and I cannot imagine denying you something so simple that brings you so much joy. I do hope you’ll tire of it before you are five. Your pacifier has a stuffed animal attached to it and I had a grand plan of cutting it off as part of the weaning process, but I honestly believe that you will be so devastated that I just can’t do it. Yet.
 

You still love books so much. When you wake up in the morning, I read to you while you’re having your milk. That’s when I get the best snuggles. You just want me to read and read and read. You’ll crawl out of my lap, walk over to your bookshelf, peruse for awhile, find one of your liking and carry it back to me with your arms outstretched and a huge smile on your face like you’re saying “now, THIS ONE, Mama!” It is the most adorable and wonderful way to spend a morning and every day it breaks my heart that at some point I have to put an end to that game and tell you that it’s time to go to school. One morning when I asked “are you ready to go to school?” you shook your head “no”, crawled over to the corner of the room and curled up in a ball on the floor. And my heart broke as I cursed working motherhood. I hate that some days I have to make you do things that you don’t want to do. I know that’s part of life. I know some day you are going to have to get on board with doing things that you don’t want to do. But you’re still so young and I just feel like a complete asshole when all you want to do is sit in my lap and read and I have to tell you no.

A few days later, you were playing on the floor of my closet while I was getting dressed for work and while I was putting my slacks on, you’d pull my pant leg back down. You are a strong little bugger, so this went on for quite awhile and at one point you folded up one pant leg on the floor and laid on top of it while I was trying to stick my foot through the other one. When I finally broke them free and succeeded in dressing myself, you started wailing and I would swear you were saying “NO MAMA! TODAY WE STAY IN OUR PAJAMAS!”
 

I hate that some days you don’t want to go to school. I hate that life is so frantic right now. I’ve told you before how much trouble I have staying in the present moment, and honestly, over the last six months, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought “things are going to be okay when…”. At this particular moment, it’s “things are going to be okay when I get my feet underneath me in this new job and we get settled in the new house”. Your dad and I were talking the other day and he said “so when do you think we’re going to be able to breathe again….August?” IT’S MAY. We have decided that once we get in the new house we are not allowing any major life changes for at least six months. You should hold us to that.

The good news is that you absolutely love to be outdoors and in our new house, you will have an unbelievable amount of room to play outside. We have a new routine now where after we all get home in the evening, we hang out in the driveway and let you run around. You like doing laps around our cars in the garage. And you like sprinting towards the street. I love that you are an outside baby, and I will love it even more when we get in our new house and you will have a big yard in which to run free. I get excited just thinking about it.

I’ve realized that being successful at working motherhood means that you have to sleep less than everyone else in the house. I am not good at that. I consider myself to be a sweet person, but without sleep, I can turn into a total jackass. The most successful people I know are those who function perfectly with four hours of sleep and I do not believe I will ever be one of those people. But I was so wound up about work the other day that I awoke wide awake at 4:30am, so I just got up and started the day. It was the most productive day I’ve had in a long, long time. I even cooked you veggie muffins and succotash. And I promised myself I’d get good sleep the next day, but because the universe hates when you make plans, the fire alarm outside of our room decided that its battery wanted to die around midnight that night and I laid in bed, fuming, as the BEEP……BEEP..….BEEP pushed me to a straight-jacket level of insanity while your father laid next to me snoring peacefully.

The next morning he very nicely asked me to pick up my pajamas and I immediately bit his head off because HOW DARE HE ASK ME TO DO SOMETHING WHEN HE GOT NINE HOURS OF SLEEP. I know that’s not a rational thought and I quickly apologized. But the reality is that a big part of marriage after kids means battling over who got more sleep, who is more exhausted. If one says they didn’t sleep well, the other immediately says no I didn’t sleep well. And this is all a ploy to guilt the other one into changing your poopy diaper because even though we pay someone else to change your diapers all day, you like to poop right when you get home. I don’t know if we should be flattered or pissed.
 

I allotted thirty minutes to write you this letter today. Feel special? You should. It’s more time than I’ve allotted for myself to bathe all week. I am not joking. But as always, amidst all of this chaos, you are still so marvelously happy and it can be so easy to keep you entertained. You are currently obsessed with bubbles. We have a special bath wash for you that came with a bubble wand and you are IN LOVE with them. In the beginning, you’d try to chase them and when they would pop right when you reached them, you’d like at me with a look of such determination like “alright, Mama, I’m gonna catch the next one. Let’s do this.” Now I think you’ve realized that they are uncatchable and your new goal seems to be to pop them. You’ll chase them around saying “bubba, bubba” and even as I was writing this, I heard you over the monitor saying “bubba”. Either you were dreaming about them or you were hoping we’d come back in and play. Either way I’m happy that you were laying in bed with happy thoughts.
 

The best part of my day, and the part that makes it all okay, is every night when I hold you before bed. I sway back and forth, sing to you, and you either peacefully rest your head on my shoulder or wrap both hands behind my neck and ferociously pull my face towards yours like you love me so much you just want to eat my face. And trust me, I want to eat yours too.

Love,
Mama

 

Letters to B - Archives

Letter to B - Month Fourteen and a Half

Dear Brooks,

Well, your fourteenth month flew by and now it’s mid-April and I’m just now finding time to write your letter.  Our pace of life is so insane and it is so unfathomable to me that from here on out, it’s only going to get faster.  Until you leave for college and then I am going to be BORED OUT OF MY MIND. 

I had to travel for work this month.  I was gone for a whole week and while I thought it was going to be completely awful and I cried when I was dropping you off at school, it was actually a really productive week and I felt more like my old self that week than I had in an entire year.  But I don’t ever want to leave you for that long again, most especially if your father isn’t there with me for some reason.  When I returned home, I was so excited to see you, but instead of tackling me and eating my chin, you were sort of bashful.  You’d smile and hide, as if you were playing it cool.  But then we went downstairs to play and you just wanted to hold my hand and walk me all around the house. 

Since that trip, you’ve been very attached to your dad.  You cry when he leaves the room sometimes and one night in a most adorable display of affection, you wanted all three of us to be together, no exceptions.  I was trying to put you to bed while your dad was putting some things away in your room and when he left, you completely melted down.  Thinking you wanted your father to put you to bed, I called him and said “he wants you”.  This had never happened before ever, and while sad, I also thought it was cute.  Dad came back and as I was leaving the room, you melted down again.  We tested this several times, and apparently you just wanted all three of us together, all night long, like we had all been apart for far too much time.  So, for about an hour, we all sat on the floor of your room and played.  You’d bring us book after book – first Dad would read, then me.  We played with your blocks and all three snuggled on the floor.  All until you were ready to go to bed.  But I think it is so ridiculously sweet that you wanted the three of us to be together and that you made sure that happened. 

On another night when your dad was out of town, I had an unusually difficult time getting you to go to sleep.  You were so unbelievably tired, but you could not go to sleep, and you completely freaked out every time I left the room.  I eventually laid on the floor by your crib and stuck my finger through the slat so you could hold it.  I sang to you from the floor.  Every so often, you’d get up and look at me through the crib slat and giggle.  I couldn’t decide if you were saying “yay!  Mama’s still here!” or “HA!  I AM VICTORIOUS!”  I laid there for about an hour and when you still weren’t going down, I decided to step outside of the room.  And you cried so hard.  But I just laid on the floor outside of your room, closed my eyes, and looked at the clock periodically.  I decided I was going to give it three minutes because a piece of my soul died every time you wailed.  You were asleep in less than two.  Still, it was awful, I felt horrible all evening, and I swear you were sort of mad at me when I went to get you in the morning.  I can’t tell you how much I hated doing that and I don’t ever want to do that again.  I want you to trust me and I hate leaving you crying like that, but you were so so tired, and I knew you just needed to sleep.  But I’m sorry you went to sleep covered in tears.  It’s just awful for me to think about.  Thankfully you are usually a very good sleeper.  We are so lucky in that way. 

You’ve learned some new tricks in the last 6 weeks.  When we say “Brooks, where’s your hair?” you sit up tall, so proudly, and with a huge smile pat your hand on top of your head.  And you’re so used to this drill now that sometimes when we just say “Brooks”, you grin and put your hand on top of your head like “I know what you’re going to ask me!  Wait!  I got it!”  And you are just so adorably pleased with yourself that it’s almost impossible not to swallow you whole. 

We’ll also say “Brooks, where’s your nose?” and I think you know what we’re asking, but you don’t quite have the dexterity to get your little pointer finger to touch your little nose.  Most of the time you end up pointing somewhere between your cheek and your temple.  We’re still working on that bit.  My only hope is that you don’t poke yourself in the eye. 

You are absolutely speaking in full sentences, we just aren’t sure what language it is.  You will go on and on about something, using loads of inflection, many syllables and sounds, arms waving just to help you get your point across, but we have no idea what you’re saying.  Your sounds are so precious, most especially when we hear you talking to yourself from the backseat of the car, but I cannot wait until I understand what you are saying.  I would love to know what’s going on in that little brain of yours. 

You’ve also added “mama”, “dada”, and “no” to your verbal repertoire, but I think you still prefer pointing, hand gestures, and using your special language instead of English. 

You also initiate games of peek-a-boo now.  You have now become the hider.  You’ll pick up a blanket, cover your face, and then magically make yourself appear with the biggest smile like you are the craftiest kid on the planet. 

My favorite new development of yours is that you’ve become quite snuggly over the last few weeks.  You are very tactile and if we give you something soft, you love to lie down like a cat and rub your face all over it.  Pappy got you a soft “sheepie” blanket and you love to nuzzle all over it.  Also, if we’re standing up and doing anything, you’ll walk over to us, cling on to our legs, and bury your face there. 

You’re also starting to snuggle stuffed animals.  I recently pulled out “Octo”.  Octo is a big stuffed yellow Octopus who was one of your first friends.  When you were an infant, sometimes the only way I could get you to take a nap was to put Octo across the room staring at you.  I think with Octo there you didn’t feel so alone and you could go to sleep peacefully.  The other day, I pulled Octo out and said “do you remember Octo?” and I gave Octo a big squeeze around the neck and said “you loved Octo!” and you promptly got up and walked into the kitchen.  Thinking you were bored with this ordeal, I was so surprised to see you quickly returning from the kitchen with your stuffed Clifford dog from Amma.  You walked up to me, squeezing Clifford around the neck the entire time, just as I had done with Octo, and when you got to me, you threw Clifford on the ground and smiled like “see!  I have one, too, Mama!”  It was so cute to me that you recognized the similarity between those two animals, especially since they are so different. 

I love that every month you find a new way of showing affection.  For quite awhile now, you’d rest your forehead against ours and this always seemed like your sweet little way of saying “I love you”. 

But just this past week, for some reason as our foreheads were resting peacefully against each other, you decided to pull back and slam your forehead into mine like a ram on a tree.  I honestly thought you broke my nose.  Because you are insane, you laughed.  I then put you down, and you walked over to a mirror and started headbutting your mirror image and by the time I made it to you to stop the madness, you already had a red mark and a knot on your skull.  And you were laughing maniacally.  I had started to have high hopes of you being a genius since Verbal Bootcamp was working so successfully, but with one slam of the forehead, all hopes were squashed.  What is the deal with that?  You fall down enough on accident!  We don’t need to damage your little brain intentionally! 

This month also marks your third plane trip.  We gave you a B+ on the way out there, but you got an A+ on the return.  You could not have been better.  We decided that you had so much fun in San Diego that you wanted to behave well so that we’d be inclined to take you on more trips in the future.  We rented a house with 4 other families, and there were 6 other kids ranging from 12 years old to you.  I think you were quite overwhelmed the first few days, but towards the end, I think you had decided that we were with our new family and I think you were quite happy about it. 

I cannot stress enough how different travel is now that we have you.  The amount of preparation involved in going on a trip with you is asinine and before we had even left, I remember thinking “wow, I’m going to need a vacation from this vacation”.  But you had such a great time and we had such a great week with good friends that all of that preparation became completely worth it. 

Plus!  You met the Pacific!  And you are IN LOVE WITH IT.  

Because we are first time parents, we did not come to the beach completely prepared.  I had purchased a nifty, over-protective UPF sun suit for you, and even sun socks!  We brought them all to San Diego with us, but the day we went to the beach, it was so cold, I thought that you certainly wouldn’t be in the water, so we wouldn’t need them.  


But you took one look at that water and you just wanted to GET IN IT.  We put you down and let you touch your toes and I thought “certainly he’ll feel how cold it is and then he won’t want to have anything to do with it anymore”.  Wrong.  You ran straight towards it and then bent down and buried your face in it.  Then, as a wave approached, I thought “certainly, this wave will scare him a bit and then he’ll want to get out of the water”.  Wrong.  The wave brushed over your little toes and you laughed like you had just met your new best friend and that wave was the best best friend any little boy could have.  Daddy kept trying to hold your hand, but you’d just pull away and run off towards the water, laughing and giggling the entire time.  

And while I’m sure people thought we were crazy – crazy for allowing our little baby to play in the freezing Pacific Ocean WEARING COTTON – I so love your enthusiasm for life and while I think we’re going to have trouble reigning you in from time to time, I think it’s so fantastic that you just run full force at things and tackle them head on. 

I think I’ve only just now been able to sit back and process the changes we endured during your first year of life.  It was a very tough year for me physically.  My recovery from your birth was very difficult and I didn’t even realize how awful I was feeling for so long until I finally started feeling a bit better.  (To any future daughters I may have, please get your thyroid checked after you have a baby.  Apparently it runs in our family and mine went undiagnosed for far too long.) 

I was also not prepared for the mack truck of emotions that slams you in the face after you have a child.  I have never lived in a place of fear, and the amount of fear and worry that I was overcome with after your birth was more than I could have prepared for.  I have finally accepted those emotions as a part of parenthood and I recognize that they most likely will never go away.  Making sure we provide the best life possible for you is a daunting task.  We’ve been blessed with such a marvelous, perfect gift in you, and I just don’t want to break you.  (This becomes much more difficult when headbutting hard objects becomes your favorite pastime.)  But when you’ve been blessed with such a perfect gift, and life still feels hard sometimes, you feel guilty for not feeling like life is fantastic every single second of every day.  But good grief, when my days are filled with trying to cook healthy meals, finding some sort of concealer that is capable of covering up these dark-eye circles, maintaining a career, a marriage, friendships, decorating a house, DOCUMENTING YOUR LIFE, researching childhood medical practices, vaccines, nutritional supplements, developmental toys, TEACHING YOU WHERE YOUR NOSE IS, reading to you, playing with you, maintaining my weight, my health, keeping up with politics, current events, KEEPING MY CAR FILLED UP WITH GAS, getting my oil changed, and finding time to actually LOOK YOUR FATHER IN THE FACE on a daily basis, it all feels quite exhausting and while life is fantastic, I have to admit that I am not running around shouting “EVERYTHING IS AWESOME” every second of every day.  We have a lot going on.  We are still learning.  And I trust that we will find better balance.       

You are such a gloriously happy little being and we are so blessed that you are such a healthy, upbeat little guy. 

While life has become monumentally more difficult, it has also become monumentally more wonderful.  My heart explodes on a daily basis because I just can’t get enough of you.  You have been so patient with us.  I can’t thank you enough.  And as I write these letters to you, sometimes I think I can’t wait until you’re older and we can sit down at the kitchen table and have long talks about life.  I realize that since you’re a boy, you may not be interested in having long talks about life, but I’m going to keep my hopes up for now. 

Love,
Mama

Letters to B - Archives

Easter!

At school, they've called Brooks an "observer" and one teacher told me that she can tell he "likes his space".  He is often so quiet around new people and it takes him awhile to warm up to his surroundings.  I find this hilarious because once he's comfortable, he will not shut up.  But even when I take him to school, the same place he goes every day, I notice that if I put him down, he will move over to the side of the room and watch from the sidelines for awhile before joining in with the other kiddos.  So, instead of putting him down immediately, I started putting him in the high chair and setting him up with a snack so that he could peruse his surroundings from up high before deciding what (or who) he wanted to play with first.  

And for some reason I forgot all of this over Easter.  My fantastic grandmother is 100 years old, has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and it's a tradition that every year, we get a picture of her surrounded by her great-grandchildren.  We decided to do this shortly after we arrived to her house, in hopes that we would get this out of the way before Brooks melted down, but we failed to give him the appropriate time to warm up to his surroundings, to get to know these people.  

First, we decided to have his lovely cousin Cameron hold him.  That did not go well.  


We thought maybe he'd be more pleased if we let him stand independently in the front with the younger kids.  Nope.  

So, we opted for Jeff to hide behind everyone and hold Brooks up in the air.  He still was not a fan.  




This whole scene lasted less than 2 minutes because Jeff and I both cracked.  (Jeff actually cracked before I did and I felt guilty for snapping images while my little one was so miserable.)

But we removed him from the torture, he recovered, and later we got some decent photos.

 

Even one with great-grandma!

A Day at the Park

I am going to go ahead and tell you that I am a horrible mother because my son is 14 months old and until this weekend I had never taken him to a park.  But there is a lovely park in Mimi & Pappy's neighborhood, the weather was divine, so I thought it was a perfect time to break into the land of parks.  

I had visions of Brooks loving the swings and my guilt about never having taken him to a park before was quickly squashed when this was his reaction to them:  



But Mimi brought him a ball, so he recovered quickly.  

And he found a stick he wanted to eat.  

"Seriously, Mom, why won't you let me eat that stick?"







We started out rough, but overall, I think the park was a success.  We'll try the swings again soon!

Ducks

We were down in Houston for Easter weekend (more on that later).  Visiting Mimi & Pappy is such a wonderful mix of relaxation and chaos.  Their house is so peaceful, they have a wonderful backyard, and we rarely have plans when there, so it's so nice to just unwind.  But there are also tons of people, lots of kids, and every family get together or meal turns the house into the eye of a hurricane and we all fall into bed exhausted and happy at the end of the day.  

But most days start by feeding the ducks right outside Mimi & Pappy's backyard and it's just so lovely.  

Brooks also brings out his "scrunch nose" face frequently while in Houston which is funny because apparently that is a face I made many times as a child.  He knows the way to Mimi's heart.   

Love Affair with an Apple

We keep a large bowl of fruit on our kitchen island and one day Brooks caught site of an apple in that bowl and completely lost his mind.  He kept reaching for it and pointing and because he's only eaten an apple in sliced form, I thought maybe he just thought it was a ball.  But lo and behold, he got ahold of it and started gnawing into it like a beaver on a tree trunk.  Apparently his canine teeth are coming in, and I'm told these are some of the most painful.  The way Brooks was gnawing on that apple leads me to believe that this may be correct.  And I feel safe saying that he is actually teething and not pissed off about the economy.  

But he fell so in love with this apple that I would not be surprised if he asked if he could marry an apple in the future.  

Seriously, he walked around like that apple was the best thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life.  

Did you know that it's apparently quite difficult to get apple juice stains out of a white onesie?  I had no idea!

Such a happy boy.  :)

Bluebonnets 2012!

Well, last year we wished for better luck with the bluebonnets, and we got it!  Not only are they outstanding this year (driving down the freeway can look like driving through an ocean), but Brooks was not at all pissed at me for disrupting his normal routine, putting a new outfit on him and dragging him out to a field at his bedtime!  Success!

I think he just broke his first law.  



"Help!"




Bluebonnets 2012.  We came.  We saw.  We conquered.

Letter to B - Month Thirteen

Dear Brooks,

I’m back.  My original intention was to write you one letter for every month for the first year of your life.  But you’ve done so many cute things this month, I just wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t document it in some way.  Yesterday, I was sitting at work and I thought “It’s the 5^th.  I feel like something was supposed to happen on the 5^th…” and then I realized that YOU TURNED 13 MONTHS OLD that day and I had to write you a letter.  

I also realized that aside from the picture below where we were trying to take a picture of you in your first cowboy hat (although it’s a bit too small), I hadn’t taken any pictures of you ALL MONTH LONG and that is just RIDICULOUS. 

SO.  I’m going to try to keep this up for as long as possible.  It helps me make sure that I pause, take it all in, and make time to take some pictures of your beautiful little face.  So thank you for being patient with me as I snapped away this morning before I took you to school. 

You passed your 1-year check-up with flying colors except for when the doctor rambled off the following sentence as if it were fact:  “So, he can point to his nose when you ask him to, and his eyes, and ears, and he’s saying 3 or 4 words besides mama and dada, okay great, good”. 

I just stood there with my eyes about to pop out of my head.  And finally when the doctor took a breath, I said “He’s…..he’s supposed to know where his nose is?  How is he supposed to know that?” 

 

 

Up until that point, I had never once pointed to your nose to tell you what it was.  I did not know that was part of my job. 

And then it finally clicked - that language that parents use when speaking to their children.  The one I always thought was so weird.  But here we go now; we’re fully immersed in it these days.  Which means that I will always refer to myself in the third person when speaking to you, and most importantly I will call myself “Mama”.  Even more strange is that I will now refer to your father as “Daddy” – even when I’m speaking directly to him, like “Daddy, can you go get the mail”. I cannot fully express to you how awkward and wrong that feels.  But I once heard a story of a couple who called themselves by name in front of their child and when their baby said her first word, she looked up at her father and said “Bob”.  It was years before they could get her to call him “Daddy”. 

Here this entire time, I’ve been speaking to you like you were a regular human, but apparently you have entirely different language requirements.  Previously, if you pointed to something, I brought it to you.  Even further, like an idiot, if you were pointing to something, I would pick it up and say “would you like this?” instead of “would you like WATER?” Pronouns have now been banned from this house.  EVERYTHING. HAS. A NAME. 

Because I am Wanda Savage’s daughter, we also kicked off a Verbal Bootcamp after that check-up.  We even have flashcards.  And I am happy to report that in the last two weeks, you have started speaking WORDS. 

For a while now, you’d point to your bookshelf in your room and I’d carry you over to it where you would pull the books down one by one.  Honestly, I just thought it was so darn cute that you were pointing, expressing opinions, and communicating even in a non-verbal way that it didn’t occur to me that I should have been encouraging you to use words.  And as much as I struggle with the working mom thing, it’s days like this that I’m glad we outsource childcare.  Because if you were left home with me alone you may never actually speak English, but instead walk around through life grunting, pointing, and looking at people and saying “BA BA BAAA!” and that would start to be really weird at some point. 

But as part of Verbal Bootcamp, when you pointed to your bookshelf, I started saying “would you like a book?” over and over and over and over and over.  And three days later you looked over at your bookshelf and said “abooo, abooo, abooo”.  (Perhaps I just should have said “book” instead of “A book”, but I’ll take it.) 

You are in love with books.  When I hear you get up in the morning, you just start saying “aboo, aboo, ABOO!” over the monitor and when I step into your room, you are standing up and pointing to your bookshelf.  You’ll pick up a book and bring it to me saying “aboo” the entire time.  And if ever you aren’t in the mood to go down for a nap, I’ll put some books in your crib with you and you’ll play with them sweetly until you go to sleep.  As long as you have books with you, you are happy. 

This past weekend, you weren’t feeling very well.  You had a slight fever, and I think you have a few more teeth poking through that are bothering you.  (I’ve learned that if ever there is a fussy baby and no one can find the cause, it’s always blamed on teething.  Some days I think it must be so annoying for you to hear people always assume that if you’re grumpy it’s about your teeth and I think it would be so funny if all of a sudden you just said “IT’S NOT MY TEETH!  I’M PISSED OFF BECAUSE THE ECONOMY IS IN THE TANK, YOU FOOLS!)  But that day, the one where I assumed you were teething, all you wanted to do was snuggle and have me read to you.  You could not get close enough to me.  If we were sitting on the floor, you’d step away to play for a minute and then come right back and put your hand on me as if you were making sure I was still there, or saying to me “Mama, please stay”.  And when I’d pick you up to hold you, you’d put both hands on my cheeks and pull my face towards yours and touch our foreheads together.  You’d stay like that for what felt like eternity, but never long enough.  And sometimes I swear it seemed you were trying to swallow me whole.  You’d pull my face towards yours with your mouth wide open and then put my chin in your mouth and say “BA BA BA” and then curl up and bury your head in my chest.  And while it can be a bit disconcerting to see an open slobbery mouth ferociously bee-lining for your face, I couldn’t help but giggle and bask in the glow of all of that love. 

I bet we read 33 stories that day, but none more than Clifford.  You are currently in love with Clifford the Big Red Dog, and I’m pretty sure I read it to you 14 times in a row.  Right when I’d get to the end, you’d start nodding your head and grunting as if you were saying “Again! Again!”, so I’d start right over.  And if I strayed from the plot at all, if I said “can you point to Clifford’s nose?” or “what color is Clifford?”, you’d start shaking your head “NO” as if you were saying “C’mon, Woman!  Stick with the program!”

It is so cute to finally see you attaching meanings to words.  You’ve been repeating sounds for quite awhile, full words even, but it never seemed like you understood the meaning of those sounds.  But now you do.  It’s like you’re turning into a little person.  You’ll say “aboo”, and you can’t say the word “clap”, but if we say it, you start clapping, so there is understanding there.  You’ve also started saying “UH! uh!” for “Uh! Oh” when something is dropped.  And apparently you find this so entertaining that you now do it on purpose.  I’ve watched you, several times, sit in your high chair, pick up a piece of food, extend your hand all the way out to the side and deliberately release your thumb and forefinger so that the food falls to the ground and then you look at me and say “UH! uh!”.  So perhaps you don’t entirely understand the meaning of that phrase because it is supposed to be accidental, but you know when something makes its way down to the floor, the appropriate response is “uh oh”.  At least you now announce your messes. 

And get this – a few days ago when I was dropping you off at school, the Curriculum Director pulled me aside to tell me how advanced she thinks you are.  I told her that you didn’t know where your nose, eyes or ears were and she laughed at me.  I have chilled out now.  But yay Verbal Bootcamp! 

And as far as your physical skills go, I really can’t believe how well you’re walking.  It seems like you’ll be running any day now.  You spent about two days doing this adorable thing where you’d bend your elbows back and curl your wrists over like a bunny rabbit while tip-toeing around toe, heel, toe, heel, and I thought “I need to video that”.  But before I got around to it you started walking like a normal person.  You hardly even toddle anymore. 

If it’s even possible, you are starting to express more opinions over your dinner selections.  I’ll start approaching you with food from across the kitchen and you’ll already be telling me how you feel about it either by flapping your arms so rapidly that it looks like you’re going to take flight, or by shaking your head back and forth over and over.  Sometimes I still approach even when I get the negative response because I want you to at least TRY it and when I ignore the first head shakes, you then start waving your hands in front of your high chair tray as if you’re not even going to let me touch it.  You have very strong opinions. 

You are still really tiny, so I’ve gotten creative with your menu.  But it does not matter.  One Sunday, I spent hours cooking your meals for the week and for the next three days, all you wanted to eat was hummus.  And for the three days after that, all you wanted was blueberries.  You can eat 3/4ths of a pint of blueberries in ONE SITTING.  Blueberries are your crack.  You shovel them in your mouth so quickly that sometimes when you open up to put another one in, a whole blueberry falls out of your mouth.  We’ve started giving them to you one by one. 

 

Things with the new house are coming along and I’m finally starting to get excited instead of feeling perpetually overwhelmed.  But that means you are going to be changing schools soon and I didn’t realize I would be so sad about that.  I knew I would miss your teachers – without them there is no way I could have gone back to work and I am so thankful that they were there to support us during that time.  But I never thought about the friendships you had made.  You really do have a little group of buddies.  When I drop you off in the morning, Henry squeals so loudly and crawls over to you like he’s so happy he’s found his best friend again.  Conversely, there is a little girl in your class and she seems to like you very much, but I do not think this feeling is reciprocated.  When I put you down on the floor at school, she shrieks – a deafening shriek – and crawls over to you, gets really close to your face and starts pointing at your nose.  (I wonder if she’s taunting you?!)  At about this time you look over at me like “Mama, you better get this crazy chick away from me” and then you attach yourself to my leg.  I can’t say I blame you.  But it never occurred to me that you’d already be making opinions about other people and deciding who you wanted to be friends with and who you didn’t.  I know it would be much harder on you if we moved later in life, but I’m still sad that you’re going to be leaving your first friends.  I promise you’ll make new ones. 

 

Your dad has still been traveling a ton, we’re going on almost a month this round, but he comes home TOMORROW.  Can I get a high-five for that?  (You’ve almost got that down, too.)  Here’s to a nice, peaceful weekend with the THREE of us. 

Love,
Mama

 

 

Letter to B - Month Twelve

Dear Brooks,

I cannot put into words how unfathomable it is to me that you are one year old.  This year has marked the most monumental in my life and while it has been completely magical and wonderful, to be completely honest, it feels like someone threw me in a washing machine, spun me around to the point of almost drowning and then spit me out the other side.  And then as I sat there trying to compose myself, you crawled up to me, snuggled into my chest and giggled uncontrollably and all of a sudden I was sitting on a pile of clouds and rainbows and nothing else mattered.  Until your father walked in and said “what happened to your hair?”  True story. 
 

I think the most exciting news this month is that you are a WALKER!  You have gained so much stability recently, regularly standing on your own for long periods, and one day a few weeks ago, I said to your dad, “put him down and see if he’ll walk to me”.  And, YOU DID.  Even better is the fact that I happened to grab the video camera, so I have your VERY FIRST STEPS CAPTURED FOR ETERNITY.  It’s like the God of Working Motherhood was shining down on me that day.  Amma and Grandpa had been in town watching you the week before and we were certain you would take your steps then.  I had instructed Amma and Grandpa to flat out lie to me if that happened while I wasn’t around.  Better yet, if you started to take a step, I told them to PUSH YOU DOWN.  Gently, of course, but I really said that. 

But that day when you took your first steps, you walked back and forth between your dad and me, arms up in the air like a zombie, giggling wildly the entire time.  I was so proud and excited that I was screeching in the camera and after you had done this several times, you got down and crawled to your walker and looked at us like “now WATCH THIS!  I can go so much faster with this thing!  YOU ARE GOING TO BE AMAZED.”  

You haven’t walked much since then as speed is much more important to you than method.  You are quite an adept crawler and if you really want to get somewhere, you’ll just bend down and sprint-crawl across the room.  Just these last few days you have decided to walk on occasions when you could also crawl.  I still can’t tell you how happy I am to see you exercising some caution, because neither your father nor I had any when we were your age. 

With this newfound stability and strength, you’ve decided that you would like to climb things.  You’ll wobble over to something and try to lift your knee as if to climb on top of it, but you haven’t been able to reach it yet.  You have so much determination – your little face puckers up with concentration and it makes me so proud to watch you continually trying to do something.  You’ve tried to climb on top of the window seat several times to no avail until one day Mimi was sitting on the floor in front of it and you toddled over to her, put your foot on her knee, and climbed right up on top of that window seat.  And you didn’t even stop to congratulate yourself.  You just kept moving forward with such determination like now that you had reached the top of the mountain, you had to explore what was up there before someone took you down. 

Mimi has told me a story many times – the one about me when I was your age and she walked into the kitchen (where she had left me playing for only a moment) and she couldn’t find me.  Much to her surprise, she looked up and saw me sitting on top of the refrigerator.  I’ve heard this story many times, and while it sounded shocking, it didn’t quite register with me until I had you.  Thankfully we have cabinets on top of our refrigerator, so this won’t be an option for you, but I’m sure you’ll find something else.  PLEASE BE CAREFUL.  This month also marks your first emergency room visit (you are fine), but I’d like to avoid any in the future. 

One evening we were waiting for your dad to get home from work and we were outside in front of the house and you were walking up and down the sidewalk while I held onto your hands.  The UPS man came by and said “you know, they say learning to walk is the most difficult thing we’ll ever accomplish in life; that we’ll never try and fail at something so many times ever again”.  I never thought I’d hear such wise words from the UPS man.  So, remember that, okay?  If you can learn how to walk, you can do ANYTHING.  ANYTHING!  Even clean up your own poop! 

You have become a great eater in that you’ll try (and enjoy) just about anything.  As long as it is prepared to your liking.  I have made various chicken dishes for example, and you have loved them all.  The same goes for vegetables.  But if I try to serve you leftovers the next day, you will not have it.  You literally turn your nose up at me as if I must be some sort of imbecile to serve you something that is so beneath your social status.  I took the following picture of you when I was receiving such a scolding, as you were saying, “Listen, Woman.  My food will be fresh.  It will be organic.  It will be NOW.” 

Let me go ahead and set your expectations early.  There is no possible way that I am going to cook a fresh meal for dinner every single night for the rest of your life (or even for the next 6 months), so you’re going to have to get used to eating some leftovers, mmmkay?  And furthermore, when you are displeased with the meal that is placed in front of you, violently shaking your head back and forth and throwing the food all over the floor is not an appropriate response.  I’m pretty sure I got the message when you spit it out.

You started a new thing this month where when I’d go to get you out of your crib, you’d quickly turn around and bury your face in the mattress and put your butt up in the air and I thought “okay, I guess he’s not ready to get up yet”.  But I finally realized that you were actually requesting a backrub. You now regularly crawl up to me and turn around, presenting your back to me so that I can easily scratch it.  Like a dog.  

Your laugh is the most magical sound I’ve ever heard; it rocks me to my soul.  You have such an adorable sense of humor, and you are quite ticklish, which means I get to hear that incredible laugh of yours quite often.  You laugh with your entire being, down to your core, and the people who laugh like that are my most favorite on the planet.  The other day I was taking you to school and you just started laughing in the backseat – like you had just recalled something funny that had happened earlier.  You are so gloriously awesome.  

You have such a perfect little soul and I still can’t believe we are so lucky that of all the baby souls in the world, yours found its way to us.  You are determined, rambunctious, opinionated, and funny.  I was playing with you in the living room the other day and I laid down on the floor.  You looked over at me and started laughing like it was so funny that Mom was laying down in the middle of the room and then you crawled over to me, laid down right beside me and curled into my chest like “you’re so silly, Mom, but I’ll join you”.  

You’ve accomplished so much in this first year of your life and it has truly been an honor to watch you grow.  I am so amazed that we have kept you alive.  We are still fumbling buffoons, but many things are getting easier, and I am very much looking forward to the beautiful years to come. 

Love,
Mama

PS – I’m still counting “mama” as your first word, although you haven’t said it much since the first time.  You say “dada” all the time whether you’re pointing at your father, your bottle, or the toilet.  But at school, they told me that you said the word “gentle”.  I find this hilarious, because for that to be one of your first words, someone must be saying that to you quite frequently.  So, what have you been doing?  Patting the other babies with a bit too much “love”?  Throwing toys?  Either way, I think it’s precious that you’ll say “dintil”.   

PPS - Thank you for showing me that my heart could contain this much love.  I had no idea.   

Month Eleven

Month Ten

Month Nine

Month Eight

Month Seven

Month Six

Month Five

Month Four

Month Three

Month Two

Month One