Letter to our 23 month old.

Dear William,

On November 8, 2013, you turned 23 months old.

One of the biggest things this month is that we’ve having been working with you on your fear of water in the bath tub. Since you were 12 months old, I’ve been washing your hair with just a damp washcloth. A week before you turned 22 months old, something made me think you were ready to work through this. So, I started then asking you to lie back (while I hold your head) and rinsing your hair with water from a container. This was coinciding with your desperate need for yet another hair cut, because when you’re hair is longer, it’s difficult to get the soap out with a damp washcloth.

While we worked with you on this, I knew it was impacting you, because at various points throughout the day when it crossed your mind, you would say, “I laid back! You did it! Yay!” But when it came time to actually do it, you would start to cry and I would reassure you, “Mommy has you! Trust me! We’re just rinsing your hair.” And then praising you, “You did it! You laid back!”

Now, at 23 months old, you can’t wait to get in the bath tub. All the way home from running errands in the evening, you say from the back seat, “It’s not bath time yet!” Then when we get home, and get you in the tub, you start laying back on your own to rinse your hair, first thing. It looks like you’ve truly overcome your fear of water on your head, at least in this instance. Coinciding with this notable development is your love for “washing cars.” You rinse and rinse your bath cars and say that you’re washing them. You have very clean bath toys.

You now love bath time so much, that I have to set a timer and tell you, “When it goes ‘beep beep’ it’s time to get out of the tub.” Ridiculous, I know, but it really helps with the transition through the bath time routine.

STATS/TEETH:

You are weighing in at 33 pounds 14 ounces this month. You are 37 inches tall. You are in 3T clothing.

Teeth: Your two year molars are moving in. Often when we brush your teeth, we get blood on the toothbrush. I think both sides are coming in, because blood comes from both sides of your mouth. Poor baby.

THINGS YOU SAY:
Con-toy is guitar. Bicycle, you say the “y” with a long “i” sound. Police car – Podeece car. Ambulance is amubance. You stopped saying “s” in front of words for some reason, kind of weird.

The first week after having turned 22 months old is the first time you started regularly saying “mommy” when you woke from your sleeps, instead of crying. You still cry out in the middle of the night. This is to be expected, I suppose, given that your molars are coming in. It also appears as if you’re gaining control of your emotions or frustrations… if you’re crying and upset, I usually ask you to please stop crying and use your words so I can help you. Sometimes, you’ll stop mid-cry, sniffle and tell me what you want. Then you say, “Yay! You stopped crying!” That is not something I’ve ever told you, but apparently you apply praise liberally to any occasion.

You know your right and left. When I ask you for your right or left hand, or right or left foot to wash in the bath tub, you lift it for me.

You hear the cat’s collars from upstairs and say, “That’s a cat downstairs.” Indeed.

You know by sound what is going by on the street, a bus, motorcycle, fast car, or our neighbor, Michael’s car. ha

You know your primary colors… we ask you what color your diaper is when we change you or get you ready for your bath, and you always say the correct color. Red, blue, green, white, yellow… you know them. Also, your various cars, you ask for your purple car, red car, blue car, etc. Even though you’ve been doing this for awhile now, it never fails to surprise me.

You request specific songs from your music class CDs… “Want to hear the car song, please? Want to hear the train song, please? Trot Old Joe song, please?” So we often drive down the road listening to repeat of the same song over and over again. Just this past month you’ve started singing the words to some of them. I came home one day for lunch and you serenaded me with B-I-N-G-O. I was so shocked, not believing what I was hearing. We still have some to go before you sing on tune, though.

Also, when you have a stuffy nose, communication is helping you when I need to use the nose frieda on you. Instead of screaming and fighting us, and instead of just sticking the thing up your nose, I ask your permission first… “May I suction your nose? Are you ready?” And you reply, “Mommy suction nose! I’ll feel better.” And then you always like to see what I get out of there, and same for when I clean your ears, you like to see it. A human curiosity, I guess.

Your memory is amazing… we decided to stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch one day, as we pulled into the shopping center, you said, “I go to Monkey Class???” Your gymnastics class is in the same shopping center, you recognized it despite not having been for a couple months. We went to JoAnn’s shortly before Halloween and there was lots of motion sensor, scary stuff. You talked repeatedly about “the scary aisle.” Just a couple days ago we went back, you looked around and then looked at me and asked, “Where’s the scary aisle?”

One evening I sat down to nurse you and you repeatedly requested your blue car. I repeatedly told you I didn’t have it. It turns out that technically, I did have the blue car, I just didn’t know it. When I stood up after nursing on you, I was sitting on the thing.

You tell me, “You’re my baby.” I have no idea where you get THAT from. ha

NURSING/FOOD:
You still nurse a lot, and enjoy it. I’m grateful that I have this comfort that I can give you. I still pump whie I’m at work, although I’m down to 2 sessions per day instead of the 5 sessions I was doing a year ago. Those two sessions give me a mental break, too, and I spend the time reading eBooks on my netbook.

SLEEP:
This month has been rough in the sleep department. Often you wake in the early mornings, and then don’t fall asleep nursing. In fact, I kind of think the nursing keeps you in a light dozing state. Your sleep is much more adult-like now (since you were 20 months old). So when I’m certain you’re not swallowing milk anymore, I will ask you to unlatch. You do, but aren’t too happy about it. I put you back in your crib and then you ask me to stay with you and hold your hand. I’m OK with doing that, but your father and I need to figure out a better configuration for that because I’m lying on the floor sticking my hand through the crib siding, and that’s just not very comfortable and makes for a very long day for me, if I’m getting up with you at 3:30am. To complicate matters, we had the time change this month…

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:

10/12 — Tanaka Farms, we saw lots of pumpkins, a pumpkin cannon, we took a tractor pulled wagon ride, went through a corn maze and pet lots of goats. The baby goats were the cutest and softest. We also met up with a couple moms from our birthing class. The one mom, Claudia, was wearing her 2 month old baby girl and I was wearing you… you wanted to “pet her” and then I showed you her tiny little toes… the next day you were saying, “Saw a baby, saw tiny toes!”
10/19 — we spent the morning at Grandma D.’s condo and the afternoon at your Grandma and Grandpa H.’s house, visiting them and your cousins
10/26 — we attended Dr. Werlin’s reunion.
10/26 — we went to the Great OC Park’s Halloween event. You visited their pumpkin patch and rode their Wild Train Ride.
10/31 — you trick-or-treated as Krypto (aka Super Dog). It took you one time and you had the routine down, knock on the door, say trick-or-treat, get candy, say thank you … visit if they want to and then move on. You loved your pumpkin with candy it, although you don’t yet know that candy gets opened and eaten. You just like to have it and add to your candy collection.
11/1 — we went to our mountain cabin for a couple days
11/3 — we visited Mason Regional Park for the morning

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
I’m super excited to have found a less expensive music class. Unfortunately I cannot attend, as it’s Tuesday mornings, but your Grandma D. graciously takes you. It’s 30 minutes (instead of 45) long and there’s a playground right near that you can visit before or afterwards.

Since our community pool’s heat is turned off for the winter, I’ve been swimming at the gym. This is noteworthy, because we’ve taken you a couple times and let you play in the Kid’s Klub there. You love it and get all excited to “go to the gym!” You lead us out to the garage the moment mention is made of this outing.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How you stroke my arm while nursing.
How, when asked if you’re done nursing, you say “no” around a mouth full of boob. You’ve also started humming songs to me while your nursing, mostly identifiable by the rhythm of it.
How you go into a sing-songy voice when you’re imitating something we’ve said to you.
How you love all the Christmas trees and decorations that are out in the store. In fact, you ask to “go see Christmas trees?” or “Go see big snowman?” the second we get into the store.
How your play has gotten so creative and imaginative. You pretend eat, we have delightful snack times out in your playhouse in the afternoons, with pretend “chicken pancakes,” leaves, spiders, persimmons, and whatever other items you think might be a good snack.
How you loved my Halloween costume, that I carry a Barbie doll dressed identically to me. You called her “mini mommy!” and you wanted to carry the doll around with you all night long.
How you love your sonic toothbrush. One night you ran off stealthily with mine and I found you sitting on the guest bed leaning back with it turned on and in your mouth. That evening I bought you one of your own. Best thing I ever did!
How you ask permission to do things, but it sounds like you’re making a statement. You’ll say, “You can touch that…” But what you mean is, “May I touch that?” It’s so funny.
How gentle you are with babies… at the gym’s Kid’s Klub, I came back to check on you after I was done swimming. You were lying on the floor, your face in your hands, your eyes closed, while a 7 month old patted your face. You patiently let him explore. When he was done, you got up, ran over and got a dump truck and rolled that toy over to the “baby” so he could play with it.
How you have entire conversations while holding your play phone up to your ear… and you really do have conversations when you’re on the phone with someone.
How you love cars. Hot Wheels to be precise. You currently have over 50 Hot Wheels. That means that we’ve gone shopping at least 50 times over the last couple months and purchased you a Hot Wheel. We purchased a case for them at Toys R Us when we went there the other day (that was the item on the list). It holds 72 cars. It’s half full. You even love carrying just the case around. We are doomed. It’s a good thing I like Hot Wheels. In my mind’s eye, I can see our house getting wheeled down the street by tiny little wheels… you love them, I mean LOVE them.You know when one is missing and will ask for it specifically. You send them spinning across the living room floor (hard wood). If it goes far, and doesn’t spin out, you stand up, clasp your hands together gleefully and say, “Oh! That’s a good one!” You lined your cars up one night and said, “They’re waiting…” I asked you what they were waiting for. You replied, “Green light!” I said, what happens when the light turns green? You said, “It turns red.” Huh. I guess you’re kind of right, I’ve certainly seen lights like that! The things you think of just make me laugh.

These things you do make me wonder what you have in store for you in the future, and who you will be. I have no idea, of course, but I’m absolutely adoring watching you figure it out.

Love you forever,
Momma