Month Eighteen

Dear Henry,

Today you are eighteen months old. That's 547 days. Or 13,128 hours. Or 47,260,800 seconds. No matter how you choose to add it up, it still comes down to your being on the planet for a year and a half, minus the incubation period. I'm certain the next time I look you'll be graduating from college or returning from a stint in the Peace Corps. And that a few short moments later, you'll be married and expecting your own kid. That's how fast it sometimes feels your toddlerhood is going by. (Your dad's perspective is that things are progressing slowly. I'm sure he's ready for you to start studying for the SATs but he realizes it'll be another 16 years before you do so.) 

Eskimo kisses are my favorite development from this past month. We shared our first one a few weeks ago. We were sitting on the stool by your crib the way we normally do before bedtime. You had just finished having some milks while I read to you and were looking up at me so sweetly batting those obnoxiously long eyelashes of yours when I mentioned an Eskimo kiss. You smiled and waited expectantly as I bent down and touched the tip of my nose to your nose. Wiggle, wiggle. The tiniest of giggles escaped from you and then you signed for more. As I bent down to give you another Eskimo kiss, you lifted your head ever so slightly to meet me and our noses touched again. Wiggle, wiggle. That smile grew into the world's biggest smile ever displayed on the face of a toddler. And I was hooked. I'd give you Eskimo kisses all day long if you'd let me. But there are other things for a young lad to do, like throwing balls off the patio and jetting out into roadways.

Our new Monday activity involves The Little Gym where we've signed you up for classes. I was hesitant to take you after having a less than stellar time at the Gymboree music class but this is definitely more your speed. You zoom from one end of the gym to the other, often hitting the mat during your travels to roll around or begin an ecstatic crawl. You are a whiz at the balance beam. Lots of tots sort of stumble along with feet that are uncooperative and miss the beam, but not you. The first time you got up there, with me as spotter and guide, you nearly ran down the dang thing. You were more sure-footed on the beam than you are on regular ground. On a side note, I'd like to take the time now to point out that definitely is spelled "d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y". I've been seeing that word misspelled all over the place and it drives me bonkers. You'll learn someday, if you haven't already, that misspellings are one of my pet peeves. There's a difference between a mistype and a 'I don't have a frickin' clue how to spell this word so I'll just put this down and not bother to use spell-check or a dictionary' misspelling. The former is forgivable the latter is not. And let me just give you this tip since I always had a hard time with the words "former" and "latter". Former is for the first - both start with an "f". Latter is for later - both start with an "l". Hopefully this will help you keep these two straight so you can use them correctly. 

You can play for longer periods of time by yourself, which is awesome. But this 15-minute phase of self-sufficiency comes with a price. It means that when you do require my attention, you want it without delay. Forget putting the cake in the oven or finishing the last of the dirty dishes. Your need is immediate and must be attended to before all else. I'd begrudge you this requirement if I wasn't so overjoyed at having a few seconds to not read the same board book over and over and over again. I've tried being sneaky and swapping out the books but you're pretty persistent and when you want a particular book you go and find that particular book. Then you track me down and we read it because, well, what else am I going to do? 

You can walk up stairs all on your own if there is a railing low enough for you to hold on to, you can complete simple puzzles, and you can recognize jokes. There's this one book by Mo Willems (a favorite author of yours) called "The Pigeon Has Feelings, Too," and there is a part toward the end when the pigeon realizes he has been fooled into being happy. When we come across the "Wait a second," line you laugh and smile at us. That pigeon gets you every time. In the bath, you are now quite fond of lying on your belly and blowing bubbles in the water. You must know you have stinky toddler feet because you are more than willing to raise each foot individually so I can suds 'em up and make 'em all sparkly clean with a fresh scent.

We have now gone on two official hikes - not mere journeys around the neighborhood but actual 'feet in the woods on beaten down trails' hikes. So far you seem to enjoy the hiking, even with our near miss after the first hike when we lost our way back to the tram station. The best part is that you are enjoying nature. You toddle. You run. You walk. And you occasionally stop to point out whatever element of the wilderness has captured your attention, typically pine cones that have fallen on the forest floor and rocks and flowers and the ground and the sky, the trees, the birds, and various plants. So, yeah, pretty much everything. On our latest hike the ground was mushy from many days of rain and you sought out my hand to hold during the majority of the hike. I'll always be nearby to help when the ground beneath you is mushy, bean.

Love,

Mom