Letter to our 16 Month Old

Dear William,

On 04/08/2013 you turned 16 months (1 year 4 months) old.

You are weighing in at 31 pounds 3.5 ounces.  Wearing 2T or 24 month sizing.  You still fit in your Stride Rites that are sized 6EW, but it’s becoming more difficult to squeeze your feet into them.  We are buying new shoes in size 7.  I scored a pair of Etnies “Grow With Me” brand hightops in red (!!) for you at the resale shop for about $8, and am so happy with them.  I tried to buy you a pair of sandals in size 7, but went back later to have you try them on and your foot is so fat that I couldn’t get the velcro over the top of them.  Size 8 was too long, so we left without sandals for you.  I blame your huge feet on your father.

Teeth:  You have all four of your 1st molars, and are currently working on your canine teeth.  I believe they have been the cause of much of your discomfort and needy/clingy days lately.

New words this month:  “Knee.”  “No, not now.” “Coat.” “Choo-choo.” (train)  “Hat.” “Doggy.” “Daddy.” “Birdy” “Wa-wa.” (water) “Bubble.” “Bib.” “Eye.” (Usually accompanied by your finger in the eye.) “Bear” “Key or keys.” “Oh no!”  “Go?” (as in, Where did it go?) “Banana.” (the whole word) “Poop.” “Apple.” “Mail.”
Words you are trying to say: “Pear.” “Plum.” “Fish.”
Words you sign:  “Hat.” “Cat.” “More.” “Banana.” “Milk.”

As usual, the day after you turned 15 months old and I finished last month’s update letter, you did a Big Thing.  You do this to me ALL the time, by the way.  It’s like, OK, update done?  LET’S DO SOMETHING EPIC!  So there we were, driving down the road like a family in your father’s car.  You in your seat in the back, us up front, talking. You had your book and you were reading to us, and then I hear, “UH OH! There’s my toes.”  Clear as day.  Surprised, I turned around to look at you and sure enough, you had pulled off your sock (UH OH) and were affectionately looking at your toes.  But the epic part?  You said a sentence.  A full-on sentence.  Your toes have become one of your favorite toys in the world, especially when driving around, the socks come off and the toes appear.  Best of all, toes are one of those amazing toys that we shall call a “built-in toy” because they are attached to you.  They go with you everywhere you go.

This month you are all about kisses.  You kiss my hands, my arms, my cheek, my nose and if that’s not enough, you blow me kisses… even while you’re nursing.  You will bring your hand up to your mouth area and, while nursing, will make the sound of “Mmmmuah” and fling your hand out.  I just about died from the cute the first time you did that on March 28th.  You also kiss your daddy, both of your grandmas, your Froggy lovey, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, the stuffed giraffe your Godmother got you, oh, and pictures of cats.  But most of your kisses seem to be reserved just for me.

The other big thing this month has been the word “no.”  You say “no” and sometimes mean it, then there are other times when you’re saying it with a smirk on your face and you are just being silly.  For example:
We say, “Knock, knock.  Anybody home?”  You say, “No.”  But are smirking because you know it’s a joke.
We say, “Do you want more food?”  You say, “No.”  And then you push your food away.  Emphasized with,”No, no, no!!!”
I say, “Do you want more milk?”  You say, “No.”  And then nurse some more.

Things we’ve done this past month:  A mommy/son trip to California Land where i let you have your first bite of a churro, you also had your picture taken with Mater and sort of a drive-by picture with Lightning McQueen.  We attended a mommy group meet up where we watched jumping horses.  Your last winter session music class happened last week (spring classes start later this month), you now consistently put instruments away AND help others put theirs away . You continue to attend the library reading sessions.  We attended the annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner at your father’s church (aka Green Dinner).  We had a family egg hunt and play time with your cousins a week before Easter.  We also took a weekend trip to the mountains over Easter weekend.

You had your first cold this month, it started on March 10th and you still (as of today, April 8th) have a lingering cough that, despite the cough syrup we give you, is waking you up from your naps and your nighttime sleep.  We took you to the doctor on March 21st, because you were running a low grade fever, along with your cough, and we saw a new pediatrician whom I’m not real thrilled with.  But she said your ears were just fine and that we just have to ride out the cold with the measures I’ve already been using: Vick’s baby rub on the chest and feet, cough syrup, Advil or Tylenol if needed, cool mist humidifier and a Vick’s vaporizer plug-in scent warmer in your room.

On March 20th, you went on a bottle strike.  This is absolutely maddening for me, because here I am, pumping milk for you at work and you’re refusing to drink it. Instead preferring to hold out for me when I get home.  So I’ve weaned from four pump sessions (3 for you, 1 for donation) down to two pump sessions per day.  I moved my morning session to 10am (instead of 930am), moved the afternoon session to 2pm (instead of 3pm) and dropped the lunch time pumping one week and the following week I dropped the 10pm pump session I was doing for the preemies as I decided I need more sleep in my life.  I’m also clearing out the milk I’ve had in the deep freeze all these months and gave away 336 ounces to a mom who has a 4 week old baby with severe tongue tie.  The twins I was giving milk to are now 1 year old (as of 4/9), and their parents have transitioned them to other milk.

New things this month:  Your cousins, Huck and Milo, gave you a Step Two push car, which you love to sit in.  We also found a Cozy Coupe on Craigslist for cheap, so you have that, too, and you LOVE both of those cars.  We have Cozy Coupe races with the neighbor and it’s one of the most fun family/neighbor activities that we do to date.  Lots of competitive smack talk going on, and you grin the entire time!

Bath letters in the tub are new this month, you love them and “stick” them to the side for long periods of time.  Tub time is fun again, and sometimes I have to drain the water out of your tub, dry you off, put lotion on you… all while you’re finishing up your play time in the bath before I get you out for teeth brushing.  You’ve now made brown submarines in the tub 3 or 4 times, so I hurry to get the cleaning part done before I let you play, so that we can expeditiously wrap up your bath if we need to.  In fact, one night you farted in the tub and you looked at me and said, “Oh, wow!”  Then the second fart happened, and you looked at me with big eyes and queried, “What was THAT?”  haha  I think the gas if from the plums you’ve been eating.

You can spot a car or a ball from anywhere, miles away.  I never noticed it before, but you pointed out the cars on your bath towel to me one night.  Or the time you spotted a ball way down at the other end of our community and you were looking out your bedroom window.  Also, the pictures on the wall at Target have balls and friendly smiling people on them.  I know this because you yell “Ball” and grin at them as we pass through the store. I’m pretty sure if you were in space, you would look down and spot those things. You love them so much.

Your Grandma D. has been working with you with a writing sort of etch-a-sketch.  This has translated over to crayons and other writing utensils… you scribble (have for awhile now, I keep forgetting to mention it).  With the etch-a-sketch you also slide the eraser by yourself.

Things are coming together for you in your mind every minute… I tell you we need to wipe your nose, and you smile and hold your face up for me and then slowly move your head so your nose gets wiped by the boogie wipe I am holding out.  You now are “OK” with the Nose Frida again. I took your temperature with an ear scanning thermometer and you spent the next 15 minutes engaged with putting the tip of it in your ear and pressing the button, even successfully taking your temperature a handful of the times.

Things I want to remember about you this month:  How cute you are when you push your Cozy Coupe around the neighborhood, and how you love to get up on the curb and push it alongside you in the gutter.  How fascinated you are by any electronic gadget: calculators, alarm clocks, computers, and you go around and twist any knob or bottle top that you can… and I now have to check my alarm clocks to make sure you haven’t turned the volume off (so I don’t oversleep).  You’ve gotten the tops off of my lotion bottles a couple of times and rub lotion all over your arms.  You also managed to lock yourself in the master bathroom one morning this month by twisting the lock on the door, and then while I worked to get you out, you emptied the cabinet of all my feminine hygiene products!  The way you close your little fist and knock on bathroom doors.    How you twist your head up when you hear a plane overhead because you want to watch it fly.  How cute you are when we ask you where your hair, nose, mouth, belly, toes, knees, ears and… on a whim, I asked if you knew where your penis was, and sure enough, you did.  How suddenly a picture of us all at Sea World showed up on the refrigerator and we learned that you had pulled it out and were wandering around the house with it, looking at it… and when you have a bad day, instead of it making you happy, you get more upset.  Speaking of pictures, we have pictures above your  bed of people who love you, and you love to point at all the pictures and quiz us on who they are… except the one of us.  You point at me and say, “momma” and at your father and say “daddy” and at yourself and say “Baby”, and then you point at Grandma D. and grin from ear to ear.  I babyproofed my rolltop desk drawers with packing tape, and you walked right up to it and ripped the tape off and opened the drawer anyway.  You figured out how to yank the recycling cabinet hard enough to get it open, so we had to babyproof that, too.  One morning you looked up at the top of my desk and pointed.  I thought you wanted the water bottle that was up there, but no.  You were actually pointing at the boom box that has a CD of Sunday School songs.  You wanted to listen to that music while you ate your breakfast.  You know when you’re on your way to your music class, you grin the whole way there in the car and lean forward as we carry you in!  How one morning you looked in the mirror and noticed the car on your pajamas, you looked down at yourself and poked your butt out so you could see past your cute milk belly to get a better look and backed yourself right into the cabinet!  The way you notice the light coming on in the garage through the cat access door and have connected that to the fact that either your father or I have arrived home, so the first thing we see of you when we get home is you squatted down, looking at us through the cat door, with a huge grin on your face!

When we were trying to conceive you, I blew on thousands of dandelions and wished upon many falling stars.  I knew it never made a difference but figured accompanying my ten million prayers with a few wishes wouldn’t hurt anything.  The other night while I was swimming, a star fell and disintegrated right above me as I swam my backstroke.  I paused at the end of the pool as I stared at it in amazement, surprised at how close it was.  I tried very hard to come up with something to wish for, but there was nothing in my heart except your continued growth and health.  This past month, I have watched you run in the grass and stop suddenly to pick dandelions.  You purse your little lips and blow, and when iridescent whimsy scatters to the wind, I make a wish that someone else’s dreams can come true a thousand times over, just as mine have.

Love, Momma