Dear Carolyn,
It’s only one more month until your first birthday! This time last year I was home on bedrest, watching you do somersaults and have hiccups and wondering what you’d be like. And now…now you’re a busy little toddler who still gets the hiccups and is trying to learn how to do somersaults.
I realized the other day that it’s been two whole weeks since you crawled for any length of time. You spend most of your time walking, and you’ve even started running sometimes. The dogs are very worried about this development. We finally got you a pair of “real” shoes last week, since you’ve been walking everywhere, even outside. It’s hard to let you get down and walk when we’re out though, because you and I have vastly different ideas about which direction we should be going. You also need to stop and pick up or touch everything in your path – even if it’s the 27th pine needle we’ve encountered in the last two feet we’ve walked.
We think you have your first tooth! I noticed a white spot on your bottom gum about a week ago, and although it hasn’t gotten any taller yet I’m confident it will eventually become a tooth. It was preceded by about 4 days of total misery, especially at night – there was screaming, wailing, and gnashing of gums. I hope that they’re not all so bad for you.
You haven’t tried quite so many foods this month as last, but there have been a few: pork, honeydew, eggplant, pumpkin, watermelon, fish, spinach and strawberries. Your favorites haven’t changed much from last month, either, but you have tried a lot of different table foods. I don’t generally have to make anything special for you to eat anymore – you just eat what we do, although you aren’t too fond of meat yet.
Just in the past couple of weeks your signing vocabulary has exploded! In addition to “milk”, “more” and “all done”, you now sign “cheese”, “ball”, “binky”, “shoes”, “dog” and “play”. I’m pretty sure you’re trying to sign “peas”, and you’ve made up your own sign for water (you pat your flat hand against the side of your head). Your babbling also sounds a lot like words sometimes. I think you really do say “dog” (“daw”), “duck” (“duh”) and “llama”…but we haven’t decided which is (was?) your first word yet. Your “mama” and “dada” can really mean anyone or anything at this point – we’re still waiting for you to figure out which of us belongs to each name.
Your favorite things to do are generally pretty simple – you look through books (sometimes babbling to yourself as you turn the pages), you nest your stacking cups, you try to climb in and out of your little rocking chair. You love to feed the dogs Cheerios from your snack trap: you sit in front of the gate and drop them over the bottom rail.
It’s great fun watching your personality emerge, even if sometimes it’s a little more stubborn than I’d expect! I love watching how busy you are, walking from toy to toy and making little puttering noises. (Your grandma says your little engine is running.) You’re definitely unhappy about being contained anywhere – even the living room and dining room, which are very toddler-friendly and packed with toys. And you can immediately pick out the things you shouldn’t be doing wherever we are – like pushing the buttons on Grandma and Grandpa’s television – and will repeatedly go do them, all the while looking back at me to see how I’ll react. It’s OK, though. If you weren’t so persistent, you probably wouldn’t have learned half the things you’ve learned so far. And there’s a benefit to me, too: eventually, all the running after you I’m doing will get me in shape, right?
Love, Mommy
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