Letter to our 19 month old.

Dear William,

On July 8, 2013, you turned 19 months old.

STATS/TEETH:
You weigh 32 pounds and are 36″ tall. You are wearing 3T in shirts and 2T in shorts, although any clothes I purchase now are a size up and for bottoms I put a stitch in the waist so you can wear them longer.

Your canine teeth are finally through. Your right lower cut through 5/31, right upper cut through on 6/3. Your left lower cut through 6/12 and your left upper cut through 6/17. They’ve been on the move since the end of April, so it took a solid two months to cut these canine teeth. I hear the two year molars are next, and I’m a bit horrified by that thought.

NEW WORDS:
It’s as if all of a sudden your tongue is cooperating with your brain this month. All the words you’ve been saying, and words you’ve been trying to say, and words I had no idea you knew, all of a sudden, you’re stringing them together in short sentences. The BIG new words you’re saying, “William.” You are saying your own name. You also say, “Froggy.” You’re finally saying your lovey’s name. You say it all the time, even in the middle of the night as you’re hunting for it, I hear you saying, “Froggy, froggy, froggy!” When we changed your diaper and you’ve pooped, your father always exclaims, “OH MY GOSH!” Well, now you’ve started saying it, as soon as the diaper comes off, “Oh my gosh!” or “Oh gosh!” You say “HI!” to everyone, you say, “Hello!” If I tell you to call some one. You see a phone and say, “Call daddy!” “Call Grandma” “Call Mommy!” You pretend call those same people from your playhouse’s phone. Rain, breakfast, momma car, up, down, out, zebra, elephant, cloud, flower, mommy, William, kick, hands down… ready, set, go!, grandpa, grandma, grandma D., kick, goodnight, night night, get it, got mommy, there you go, see-saw, coming, going, cold, hot, love. If we’re leaving to go for a walk, you remind us to “get phone!” and “shoes on!” When you settle to nurse, you say, “shoes off.” When you want to nurse, you tell me to “Sit down momma. Na na momma, Pleeeease?” Outside, inside, playhouse, ladybug. Red, blue, green and you point to the correct colors. I say, “five,” You say “six.” You say, “one, two, three.” You know some of your letters (especially the letter “B”) and how some of your numbers look, 5 and 6. You looked at me one day last week, pointed at your teeth and said, “Hurt, momma!” I found a scabbed over blister on the bottom of your foot and said, “Oh! You have an owie!” You took a look at it, and then anytime anyone touched your foot, you proclaimed, “OWIE!” You say, “out” and “stuck.” You also say your cousin’s name, “Huck.” You love to tell us when we’re going to the bathroom (“Potty!”) and when you’re going to the bathroom in your diaper, you say, “Poop!” and I’m pretty sure you know when you’re peeing because you randomly say, “Pee pee” throughout the day. Broken, fix it, music. Belly, belly button, him, mine, yours. “Loud” and “noisy” are adjectives you associate with loud sounds. Also, you say “messy” when you’re eating plums or anything that makes a mess. “Froggy to bed!” “Ready, set, go!” “Costco.” “Got mommy “It’s broken!” “Fix it.” Laugh (when you want us to laugh), cough (when you want us to cough, or if you want cough medicine), Medicine when you want Advil or Tylenol. There are so many more things you say and do, but if I were to categorize them, they would take up more space than I’ve already taken up. I will just say that, once again, it seems like you’re going to be a chatterbox.

NURSING/FOOD:
You have been nursing well this past month, I don’t foresee that anything will be changing in this area for awhile and that makes me happy. I love nursing you. Food is hit and miss and is usually pretty predictable as to whether you’re teeth are hurting you. If they are, you’re generally only interested in nursing. I say calories are calories and breastmilk provides some of the best customized nutrition around. You continue to love chicken, decline to eat beef. You don’t like carrots. You love any type of fruit or berry. Vegetables are hit and miss.

One evening, your father and I were discussing what we were going to have for dinner. It was a Friday night, and we’d pretty much decided we were going to eat out. From the back seat you requested, “Pizza?” And so your first sway vote happened, we went to an Italian place and you had pizza.

One morning I made some oatmeal for us to share. I asked you if you wanted some. You looked at me with really big eyes and said, “Noooooo? Pancake… pleeeeeease?” Your father had made pancakes the day before, so you ended up having leftover pancakes for breakfast.

SLEEP:
You’ve hit what everyone affectionately terms the “18 month sleep regression.” What this looks like for you is, it takes you an inordinate amount of time to fall asleep, and you won’t fall asleep before 6 hours of awake time. So, you’re often going to bed at 9pm, because you don’t wake from your nap until 3pm. You wake at 7:30am on the weekends (generally) and I wake you to nurse at 6:40am on weekdays before I leave for work. Some days you’re able to fall back to sleep, other days you’re up for the day at that time.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:

LegoLand: 06/22/2013. You really enjoyed the Storybrook Boat ride. Favorites were “horsey” and “Nah-nahs.” You got your first sunburn.
Music Class (every Monday). You love to sit right in front of the teacher. You also informed the teacher that the drums were “loud” and “noisy.”
Gymnastics Class, 06/27/2013. This was your first class… you are exhibiting some new behavior (discussed below)
Parade: 07/04/2013. You really enjoyed the parade and all the people and animals.
Pool & Block Party Playtime: 07/04/2013, your cousins came over and partied with our neighborhood. Such fun!
Fireworks: 07/04/2013. You were not a fan and after one or two, you declared firmly, “All done.”
LegoLand: 07/06/2013. We spent a lot of time in the water park, and you loved the slides and music.
Haircut: 07/07/2013. Let’s just say, I’ll be making appointments and requesting “Yanna” to cut your hair from now on.
Library story time: 07/08/2013. You pay attention well to the stories.

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
Gymnastics class, first session on 06/27. From just one class (so far), you have picked up balance beam and hands down and trampoline. You made a trampoline out of a blow up innertube, you took it to the side of the coffee table and proceeded to start bouncing on it. You balance on one leg. You will also climb halfway up on something, a chair for example, and start kicking your legs and say, “Kick! Kick!” All of this from one gymnastics class. So worth it. I wonder now if you just didn’t know you *could* do all those things because no one ever showed you?

You love to step up and step down, stairs, curbs, speed bumps and the like. You even invented an up/down game with a roll of carpet I was working with to recover the cat’s scratching post. You walked up the carpet and narrated, “Up!!! Ready???” and then a delay, and then you walked down it and said, “Down!”

When I took my car in for its oil change last month, you saw a bunch of cars up on the lifts getting worked on. Ever since then, you’ve been putting your ride-on up on chairs to “work” on it, too.

On July 4th we attended our neighborhood’s block party. There were lots of children there, including your cousins, who we invited over to participate in the party. You had a great time and were so overstimulated that you weren’t able to fall asleep until 11pm. There was lots of toy sharing going on, and I was glad that we participated because I was able to observe you with several toys and now I think I’ll hold off on ordering them, if I order them at all.

You are very much into pretend play this month. Pretend eating… you used your sand bucket and shovel as a pretend bowl and spoon. In music class, you were pretend eating out of a pan with a stir spoon. And one night after bath time, you were pretend eating things off the bugs on your room’s wall. I have NO idea where you came up with this, but it is hilarious. You also love to pretend phone people.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How cute you are when I tell you we’re gonna go to the store, you’ll be playing with your toys and I’ll head out to the garage and put my stuff in the car. I look up and you’re waiting at the garage door so you can hold my hand to go down the steps. I love holding your little hand when we’re walking around, and it’s so sweet when you reach your hand up and ask for “help.” How you love to lift you Lightning McQueen ride-on up on the chair and inspect it… you started doing that after you saw cars up on the lift at the auto shop. How you get up on the chairs in the back yard and yell at the fence between us and the neighbors, because that’s what you see us do when we’re talking to the neighbors over the fence. How you love to go outside and play in your playhouse, taking all your toys with you in innumerable trips. How you saw my blueberry bush in the back yard and recognized them and just started picking and eating them and saying, “Mmmmmm!” The way you start giggling when you’re about to do something you know you shouldn’t. How you love to play ball with someone, you throw the ball and then giggle like crazy when someone bounces the ball back to you. You grabbed a ball, one that flashes instead of bounces. You threw it to the ground and it plunked there, you looked up at me and proclaimed, “It’s broken. Fix it?” I love how anytime a temperature is noticeably different (food or bathwater, particularly), it’s either “hot, hot!” or “cold, brrrr!” The way your hands flutter and move as you nurse and then, gradually, they still and you rub the corner of Froggy on your ear or the palm of your hand as you fall to sleep.

Sometime over the last couple of months you stopped moaning while you eat or nurse. This makes me very, very sad. It was, hands down, one of my favorite things you did that you brought with you from infancy. When we flew with you at 11 months old you moaned so loud while you were nursing during take off that the guy in the seat in front of us turned and looked at us oddly. I just smiled and said it was my son nursing. He laughed, and nudged the person next to him and told her that it was a baby nursing. (sigh)

A few nights ago, nursing didn’t put you to sleep. Frustrated, and at my wits end, I asked your father to take over so I could get a few things done. He went in, tried snuggling, tried rubbing your back, tried wearing you in the bathroom with the fan going. All tools that he used to use when you were much younger to help you fall asleep. After 45 minutes had passed, I had finished my chores and you were still awake, so I prepared to nurse you some more.

After you were asleep from nursing, your father told me those 45 minutes were such a blessing to him. These days you either fall asleep on your own, or with me nursing you. Your father said he envies me that I get to hold you as you go to sleep, because he doesn’t get to anymore.

My mom told me, around the same time, how nostalgic she was about how rapidly you weaned from the bottle. She used to be able to hold you, and you would fall asleep on the bottle, and how special that was to her. Not anymore.

A friend of mine shared that she got to hold her 3 year old for his nap one day. She said her son was so tired that he just fell asleep on her. She was savoring every second of his nap on her, because it was so rare.

I remember when you were a newborn, all you wanted to do was sleep on me, and most of the time I savored it and traced your ear with my finger, or just sat there and watched you breathe, or put my hand over your chest to feel your heart beating. But there were certainly times I just wanted my freedom to do a couple of things here and there. I would take pictures of you sleeping on my nursing pillow and call them “The Great Escape!” pictures. Gradually you began to sleep in your crib. Now you go to sleep on your own for my mom. And I know the days are numbered that you’ll fall asleep nursing with me. And so for those nights when I just want you to fall asleep already so I can go take care of my stuff, I’m reminding myself … someday, The Great Escape will be you leaving home for college, and I don’t want to have any regrets that I didn’t take the time to hold you when I could.

Sometimes I just feel like there’s a huge push for our children to be independent at such a young age. But for me, since I waited so long for you to be my baby, why do I want to rush you to the next milestone when you seem to be getting there in the hugest hurry all by yourself? So, I’ll just hold you and wait for you to get there by yourself. It will happen soon enough.

I find myself praying when you’re nursing that God will make the time I am away from you speed by quickly, and stretch the time that I am with you into eternity. These precious, fleeting moments, into eternity. You’re here in my arms, so I know for a fact that God does answer prayers, after all.

Love you into eternity,

Momma