Monthly Updates

Dear Carolyn,

Today you are two years old. I can’t believe what a big girl you are! I kissed you goodnight last night knowing it was the last kiss I’d give you as a one-year-old, and it made my breath catch a little.

In the past year you’ve learned so much. You’ve learned to talk, and you say the funniest things! You can run and jump, pull your pants up and unzip your footie pajamas. You draw circles and dots and straight lines, and would spend the whole day coloring and painting if you could. You know your alphabet, and can read all the capital letters, some lowercase letters, and single digit numbers. You can almost count to 20 (you get all the way up to 12, but then it gets a little sketchy: “12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20!”)

You’re starting to master pronouns, although you do mix them up sometimes, but most of the time now you refer to yourself as “I” instead of “Carrie”. When I ask you if you need a diaper change, you proclaim “I are dry!” You’ve started using the phrases “yes, I see that” and “nice shoes” (or coat, buttons, sticker, etc.) The other night we were headed upstairs to take a bath with the new bath crayons you got at your birthday party, and you picked up your toy phone and said “Hello? Yeah, I taking bath with crayons, bye!” One night at dinner you started squeezing your food and calling it “kind of squeaky”. We figured out that you meant “kind of squishy”. It’s sooooo hard not to laugh when you do things like that (which would just encourage you, of course!)

We’ve very much entered the verbal two-year-old land, where every single minute you come up with something funny and endearing to say. I could carry a notebook around just to write them all down in and I still would never be able to catch them all.

Even though you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, you love to sing. You know all the words to a lot of songs now, including “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, “Old MacDonald”, “Rubber Ducky”, “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes”, “Twinkle, Twinkle”, “Baa, Baa Black Sheep”, “Rock-a-bye Baby”, and (of course) “Happy Birthday”. You also think you know all the words to “La La La La Lemon”, “Sing” (from Sesame Street), and several others. You now could be across the house completely engrossed in something else and if I sit down at the piano you come running over and start sobbing about how it’s “mine turn!” You love to sit on the bench, plunk out notes, and sing a song. Don’t worry, I have a bunch of that on video already.

I’m so proud of how nice your manners are. You say “please”, “thank you” and “you’re welcome” mostly without prompting. You say “bless you” when someone sneezes and “excuse me” when you burp. You’re slowly learning to share your toys and take turns with your friends. Yesterday we went out for lunch, just the two of us, and I was pleasantly surprised by how nicely you sat next to me in the booth and how neatly you ate. You even shared your hot fudge sundae with me without complaint!

Mostly, I just want to tell you that the past two years of being your mama have been the most wonderful two years of my life. I have loved watching you grow, seeing you learn new things every day, and experiencing the wonder of ordinary things through your eyes. When I look back at your pictures and the stories I’ve written about you from the past two years, I am reminded again how precious, how fleeting, this time is. Soon enough you will be the mama writing letters to your daughter, and I will have to think back to your tiny voice saying “Thanks, Mom!” to remember how little you once were.

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

Today you are 23 months old, just one month away from your second birthday. I just realized today that I ought to get started on your birthday party plans, since I should send out invitations within the week!

In the past month you’ve started speaking in longer and longer sentences, and even stringing together two or three sentences at a time. You still refer to yourself in the third person most of the time, which I’m trying really hard not to blame on Elmo. And I’ve taught you the inelegant “yeah” as a response to everything instead of “yes”. I never realized that I said that so much until you started speaking just the way I do. Ah, well. At least it’s cute when you say it.

You’ve really started into the imaginative play thing. Not only do you pretend to be a mommy to your baby dolls and pretend to cook food in your kitchen – things you’ve been doing for a while – but you act things out with your little people and have your stuffed animals kiss and hug each other. You still like to build with legos, but you’re really into your kitchen and dolls right now. And I was trying so hard to avoid the girly stereotypes, buying you cars and balls and blocks. Sometimes I wonder if it might just be built into your brain to be a girly-girl, and whatever I do or don’t do won’t change that. (Not that there’s anything wrong with girly stuff, I just want to make sure you know that you can do or be whatever you want.)

You love to draw on your magna-doodle. You’ll scribble for a bit, say “Mommy, see that!” and tell me you drew an airplane, or a pumpkin, or a “2”. And if I squint and tilt my head just right, I can see what you’re seeing. I’m trying to remember to ask you to describe your picture, rather than saying “what’s that?” because I want to encourage your budding artistic ability. Just today, you started drawing circles too! Real, honest to goodness circles. It won’t be long until you have the fine motor control to knit…

Your last bottom tooth came in a couple of weeks ago, so you now have all but your two-year molars. You came with me to my dentist appointment last week and got to play with their bin of plastic bracelets and necklaces. After a bit you looked like Mr. T, you were covered with so much bling. Luckily, you were happy enough to help put everything away and just pick out one bracelet at the end.

Oh, and I tossed caution to the wind and gave you peanut butter this month. You absolutely love it, and now I feel guilty for having deprived you of it for so long. At this point the only thing we’re still holding off on (and will for probably another year) is shellfish. I also recently switched you to 2% milk from whole. It’s a little earlier than the pediatrician recommends, but you drink at most 6 oz. a day and I’m more comfortable giving you the BHT-free 2% vs. the non-BHT-free whole milk.

Sometimes I look at you and you’re acting so grown-up and independent I have to remind myself that you’re not even two yet. Other times…well, there’s no need for any reminders when you’re in the middle of a meltdown. You definitely want to have more control over your life than is necessarily good or safe at the moment. I don’t mind if you want to wear mismatched clothes or would prefer a PB&J sandwich to grilled cheese. The clash of wills comes when you refuse to hold my hand walking down the stairs or insist on a blue cup instead of the green cup you chose and I already poured your milk into. Those are the times I really try hard to remember that you’re not quite two and I’m the adult. Those are also the times when it’s a really good thing that you’re the cutest thing since mini-pumpkins. :)

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

You’ve grown up so much in this past month it’s hard to believe! When I put your hair up in pigtails I swear you look about three, and with your language skills you might pass for that! Honestly, your manners are generally better than most adults’ are – you say “please”, “thank you”, “sorry”, “bless you” and “excuse me”, generally unprompted, and are even starting to remember to cover your mouth when you sneeze.

You’re mostly talking in complete sentences now – granted, I’m still the only person who understands more than half of what you say. You can “read” to me the books we read most often nearly verbatim. Not only do you know your alphabet, but you say the “now I know my a b c’s” part too. My heart melted the other day when you were sitting on the piano bench and I started picking out the notes to “twinkle, twinkle little star” and you started singing along! And I was rather frightened to discover that your Sesame Street habit has apparently taught you that “milk” starts with the letter “m” which makes a “mmm” sound, that “p” says “puh” and is the first letter in “Poppy”, and that “d” starts words like “dog”, “Daddy” and “duck”.

Gradually over this month you’ve gotten over your bath phobia and you’re starting to be interested in the potty again, but you’ve picked up my spider phobia and a mean case of toddler OCD. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream when, for the 27th time during lunch, the dog licks your chair and you beg for a “nakkin” so you can “clean up the chair!” The thing is, if you just didn’t tease the dogs with your food and yell at them to lie down when they already are, they wouldn’t be licking your chair.

We’ve started playing with playdough. You like to cut the dough with the little plastic knife it came with. When we color or draw you insist on having me draw babies and dogs. Every page in your sketchpad and the various dollar-store coloring books you have has several smiley-faced babies and floppy-eared dogs.

I think you may have a crush on one of your playgroup friends, Luke. You know all the kids’ names, and are always very excited to talk about them on the way to playgroup, but the name you say first and most often is Luke. We’re invited to his birthday party next month, and since you’ve started to “get” what birthdays are about I’m sure you’ll have a great time. Since Henry’s party last weekend, whenever you see a cake with a candle in a book you say “happy birthday”, blow out a pretend candle, and then clap your hands. I imagine you’ll be thrilled with your birthday this year, since I’m planning to make a Blue’s Clues cake – your other major TV habit. (It sounds like I let you watch TV all day, but really I try to limit you to 1 episode of Sesame Street OR a Blue’s Clues episode a day – your choice. Some days you have a really hard time deciding, and other days you still want to watch Signing Time.)

You have 15 teeth now. The bottom right canine still has to make an appearance, and your big back molars haven’t come in yet. I’ve been bad about keeping track of which teeth came in when, so your baby book may be full of guesses once I finally get around to filling it in!

Every month I see a little more “baby” melt away, and a little more “little girl” appears in her place. You’re becoming such a wonderful little girl, even if a tiny little part of me will always miss the baby!

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

You’re 21! (Months, that is.) It’s been an eventful month, with your first trip on a plane, your first success on the potty, and your first time strawberry picking.

It’s so much fun listening to you talk now. A lot of what you say is incomprehensible to anyone but me (and often to me as well) but you sometimes come out with the clearest, funniest sentences. Like “I want coffee, too!” and “Cookie time please?” You’re starting to use the “-ing” ending now, saying “sleeping” where you used to say “sleep”, “eating” instead of “eat” and so on. You’ll also parrot things: I can ask you to say anything and you’ll give it your best shot.

With it being summer and all, we’ve been in the pool a lot. In fact, you would prefer to live in the pool, so if it’s not raining we go in pretty much every day. Your Uncle Michael comes over to swim with us, and you wake up every morning asking “un-co mie-yo swim? ta-ree swim?” (you seem to think your name starts with a ‘t’) and every morning I have to remind you that we don’t go swimming until after naptime. You’re very brave (in a scary way) around the water, and even go so far as to stand on the side of the pool, hold my hands and jump in. You blow bubbles in the water, kick your feet, and love to splash and be splashed. Unfortunately, you’ve become terrified of actual baths now, since the poo incident. Too bad we can’t wash your hair in the pool.

The big thing we did this month was go to Florida with Nana, Poppy and your aunts, uncles and cousins on that side of the family. You may not remember it when you’re older, but you had a wonderful time, meeting Winnie the Pooh and Minnie Mouse, playing in the sandbox at Sea World, and hanging with your cousins. You were also thrilled to be on an airplane, and still talk about airplanes a lot.

At this point you have 14 of your 20 baby teeth – your top two canines came in just this past week. You just need the bottom canines and your big back molars and you’ll be done with teeth until you’re in first grade or so. With all the teeth in that mouth of yours you’re getting really good at biting and chewing almost everything. I still cut grapes and other round things, but you can even eat (and like!) raw veggies. You’ve gotten a tad bit picky about your food, though, rejecting things that have flecks of spices on them and other little anomalies. Mostly you still like and eat almost everything, as long as you’re in the mood!

It’s been a fun, and challenging, month. There are days when I’ve wondered if we’re both going to survive until Daddy gets home. And I’m sure there are going to be many more of those days over the next few years…but I wouldn’t trade being a stay-at-home mom to you for anything in the world!

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

Today you turned 20 months. 20! That’s all your fingers and toes added up together! Sometimes we count to 20. You do really well up to eleven, skip twelve, say thirteen, and then the rest of the numbers all sound like “ah-teen”. It’s a good start, though. I blame it all on Sesame Street. This month you’ve become obsessed with it, asking for it before Signing Time or even sometimes your beloved Blue’s Clues. If I’m not careful, you’re going to become a TV junkie.

Every month I’m amazed at how much your language has changed. Instead of saying “no” to everything now, you say things like “no chair!”, “no pants!”, “no play!” and “not sleepy!” (Everything you say is an exclamation. Sometimes I think there’s more than one exclamation point on the end – especially “no (in)side!!”) Longer words are popping out here and there, and cute little mispronunciations that I hate to correct – like “tah-peeyah” for caterpillar, “lo-gur” for yogurt, and “teeee!” for Carrie. And you’ve gone from loving books to being absolutely obsessive about them. No longer can I read three different stories at bedtime. No, we’ve graduated to “more ‘night moon!” and “more where sheep!” Now I read three different stories three or more times each. I have so many of your books memorized that I sometimes make a game with myself to see if I can “read” the whole thing with my eyes shut, no peeking. Since you’re sitting in my lap facing away from me, you don’t notice. Not sure if this qualifies as “language”, really, but you also pretend to snore as I leave the room at naptime or bedtime.

You’re definitely all-out running now, and sometimes when you jump your feet actually leave the floor a fraction of an inch. You climb up the little slide we bought you and slide down all by yourself, and at the playground you go down the huge spirally slide that’s way taller than me while I wait at the bottom. You have no fear, and I haven’t decided yet if this is a good thing or a bad thing. You love being outside, playing with chalk and bubbles, swinging, or watering the flowers.

Another new thing you’ve learned this month is how to remove every stitch of clothing on your body. I went in to get you up from a nap you decided not to take, and found pants, shirt and diaper on the floor next to the crib. You were pretty proud of what you’d accomplished. I was pretty happy that the diaper was empty and dry! On the diaper front, you ask to use the potty all the time, but you’ve never actually done more than sit on it for half a second. I’m fairly certain it’s a delay tactic (“no diaper! “noooo diaper!” “nooooo!!” potty?”) but I generally indulge you. One of these days you might just get it!

At our last playgroup, one of the girls who’s a few months older than you tried to start playing with you instead of just next to you, and you know what? You played with her! I was so happy and proud I thought I might cry, watching the two of you giggling over the game you made up with the playsilks. You’re growing up so fast, learning so much, and while part of me wistfully longs for the baby who used to nap in my arms, the rest of me is so excited to watch you blossom into such a wonderful little girl.

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

What a month! We’ve officially entered the “no” phase. I ask you a question, and your automatic response is “no!” The thing is, you say it in this really cute, matter-of-fact, tiny little voice, and it’s so hard not to laugh.

OK, fine, I’ll admit it. I generally do laugh. It’s a better option than getting angry, and when you’ve said “no!” to every single thing we have to do to get ready to go somewhere in the morning and we’re running an hour late because of it, laughter is really the only option.

You’ve actually made quite a huge improvement in your language skills over this past month, not even counting your very clear “no”. You’ve picked up so many animal signs from the new set of Signing Time DVDs we got you last month I can’t even keep track of them. You know more of them than I do! You sing your ABCs – and can recognize most of the written capital letters – and count to 10. You love the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and will start singing it randomly when you want to hear it. You’ve also started doing what I call litanies. You might be nursing before bed, and you’ll say “mama milk, daddy milk, molly milk, mercy (murphy) milk…” and keep on going with all the names you can think of at the moment. (It’s really funny when you throw Uncle Michael into one of those litanies, because most of the time you call him “mucka-my”.) You do this with all sorts of phrases, like “mama sleep” or “molly eat” too, not just milk. I suppose those count as two word sentences.

Sometime in the past month you also started full-out running. You run with sound effects – I can’t describe the sound you make while you run, but you do it every time. Someday I need to catch it on video. If you could spend every waking minute outdoors on swings and slides, and running around, you would. Your biggest tantrums are the result of me having to drag you indoors because it’s started pouring or we need to go run errands.

Somehow, despite your love of the outdoors, you’ve also become quite the TV addict. Your favorite shows are Blue’s Clues, Signing Time, and Go Baby. I suppose they’re all pretty harmless, and I try to limit you to a half-hour of TV a day, though there are days when you get your way and get to watch twice that much TV. You also love to watch baseball, and will bring Daddy the remote after dinner and ask “bay-bah? bay-bah?” The other day you pointed to one of the players on the screen and said “Daddy hat?” because he was wearing the same baseball cap that Daddy always wears. You’re a pretty smart kid.

When you’re not outdoors or in front of the TV (which is thankfully in a different room than all your toys) you occupy yourself with blocks, dolls and puzzles. And books! We’re even starting to read some longer picture books lately, although you do love your lift-the-flap and touchy-feely books still.

I have to admit, between the “no, no, no”s and the fact that I spend so much time chasing you down to try to get anywhere or do anything with you, this month has been pretty challenging. But at the same time it’s been a blast since you’re starting to communicate so much better and we can actually have little conversations that aren’t totally one-sided anymore. I suspect that the challenging part of things is going to get worse before it gets better, but that everything you’re learning how to do is going to far outweigh that. I’m already seeing glimpses of the little girl you’re becoming, and although I know you’ve still got a long time as a toddler I also know how fast time has gone so far, and I’m not going to wish away one second – even the challenging ones.

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

Today you are 18 months old! We celebrated by going to your last session of Babies Love Books at the library. As of today all of our scheduled activities are over for the summer, with the notable exception of playgroup.

This morning you absolutely shocked me by picking up your letter “D” alphabet block, pointing to the letter, and saying and signing the letter “D”. Then I showed you “A”, “B” and “C”, and you named those as well. I stopped there, because I’m a little frightened. Aren’t you too young to start recognizing your letters?!? You’re starting to really get good at counting as well, and will often count your toes when you’re barefoot. Sometimes you end up with 6 toes on a foot, but I think it’s just because you can’t wait to get to “8, 9, 10!” I have to admit, I haven’t kept very good track of what new signs you know this month, but you’re starting to try to sign the letters and numbers, and we just got the next set of Signing Time DVDs with all kinds of animals on them so I bet you’ll learn a lot over the next few weeks. I can think of 100 words you say now – I know there are some I couldn’t remember when I wrote them all down though, so there’s probably quite a few more. I can’t believe that just three months ago you barely said three words.

Now that the weather is warmer, we’ve been going outside and playing with chalk and bubbles, and swinging on your swing – it’s very cute when you say “wheeee!” every time I push the swing. The funniest thing in the world to you is when we’re on the deck with the bubbles and the dogs, and Molly jumps up on her hind legs and snaps at the bubbles. You love being outside so much that when I have to take the dogs out and it’s raining, and I leave you indoors, you cry like your little heart is broken in two. I think I’m going to have to get you rain boots and a slicker so you can go out and play in the puddles.

“No!” has become a rather frequently used word in your vocabulary. Sometimes you get in a mood where you’ll say “no” to everything, even things that you want. Luckily, it’s still cute. We’ll see how cute it still is in a few months!

You really want to do everything yourself now. You point to your chest and say “tee” – which is your name for yourself apparently – when you want to do it instead of letting me. So far you can get your pants on most of the way, your shirt on with a little guidance, and your socks on pretty much on your own. You blow your nose – and toss the used tissue! – and wash your face on your own, and you get a turn at brushing your teeth and hair after I do it. And if it’s bath night, you can feed yourself an entire container of yogurt!

I love hearing you wake up every day. You almost immediately start calling for “Moddy” and “Mercy”, and you talk to your dolls and laugh at whatever they say back to you. You’re always so happy to see me when I come to get you each morning, and your smile brightens up my morning too!

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

Spring is right around the corner, and you’re becoming so much more aware of the world outside our house that I can’t wait to share the new leaves on the trees and the bugs in the garden with you! Cars, trucks, buses and airplanes go by and you hear them and scream (and sign) “car!” or “train!” You hear the birds outside your window every morning and wake up earlier just to listen to them. It’s thrilling to go out on a cloudy day because then you can look up and shout (and sign) “cloud” over and over again. It’s like you want to be sure I don’t miss a moment of all the extraordinary things that happen on a perfectly ordinary day.

Speaking of your screaming and shouting, I can only think of 17 new signs you’ve learned this month (it must be time to buy a new set of Signing Time DVDs!) but you now at least attempt to say almost every one of the 117 words you know how to sign, and even some you don’t. The new signs this month are “stuck”, “colors”, “rainbow”, “alligator”, “friend”, “monkey”, “aunt”, “uncle”, “cousin”, “me”, “grandma”, “grandpa”, “no”, “cloud”, “my turn”, “excuse me”, and the letter “b”. I’m really even more glad you sign at this point, because most of your words sound like at least one other word (is “bah!” ball, block, bear, book, baby, bunny, bread, box or bye?!?) so the visual clue is pretty important. Speaking of clues, you can now ask for Blue’s Clues by name, by signing “blue” and saying “clues” at the same time. Also, you’ve learned some manners this month, generally signing “please” when you really want something without being prompted, and signing “excuse me” when you burp. We’re still working on “thank you” – you’ll sign it when we tell you to, but I don’t think you quite get when you’re supposed to say it yet.

Your absolute favorite activities at this point are coloring and playing with your set of Duplos. We got you a building plate for them, and you can put the blocks together pretty easily at this point. You can also take things apart pretty easily, and that seems to be your preferred method of playing with Legos: Mommy builds a tower, Carrie pulls it apart, giggling with glee. You also adore dolls. In fact, you now go to bed with three pink rag dolls (I call them the triplets) and you have two baby dolls that are your daytime “babies”. I’m pretty glad you don’t have a younger sibling yet, because you like to stuff your “babies” into a plastic bucket that doubles as a drum and put the lid on…although to be fair, I haven’t sewn the doll bassinet I’ve been planning to make for the last two months, so you don’t really have a bed for your dolls.

We’ve read the same book, Goodnight, Sweet Butterflies, before every nap and bedtime and every morning when you wake up for at least the past month. You love to point out everything on each page for me to label, and there are a lot of things on each page! And you’re convinced that the earthworms on the pink butterfly page are snakes. Either that, or you think that earthworms hiss. Luckily, when we’re not in your room you bring me a variety of other books to read. I’m pretty sure I’ve had dreams about that butterfly book lately, I’ve read it so often!

I’m fairly certain that you’re starting your “terrible two’s” a bit early. We’ve had some struggles just this past week with an overnight change to where you absolutely want to do everything yourself. This includes climbing into your highchair by yourself, washing your own face, and putting on your own pants. Most of the time this isn’t a problem, except the pants – you haven’t figured out how to do that just yet, and I can only allow you so much time in the mornings to try because we usually have something fun to go out and do, and you get really, really, angry when I finally do it for you. I’ve seen the glimmers of all-out tantrums, too, where you sort of melt into a puddle or start banging your head on the floor. I can understand how frustrating it must be, so you’ll get nothing but sympathy from me, although I can’t promise that I won’t laugh sometimes – it might sound mean, but laughing is better than getting frustrated myself, right?

I’m looking forward to seeing spring through your eyes this year. I’m glad I have you reminding me about all the fantastic things I never stop to see anymore!

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

In the past month I think I’ve entirely lost the little baby I brought home, but she’s been replaced by the coolest little girl, so it’s all good. You’re such a good-natured little person: you’ve had a cold on and off for this entire month, cut another front tooth plus two molars, and you’ve taken it all in stride and been a happy little girl despite it all.

I don’t even know where to start. You’re up to 100 signs now, having learned a whopping 30 this month: “please”, “thank you”, “help”, “leaf”, “train”, “bean”, “red”, “yellow”, “green”, “blue”, “purple”, “candy”, “surprised”, “boat”, “house”, “brush teeth”, “mouse”, “cake”, “grass”, “clean”, “dirty”, “love”, “I love you”, “hug”, “sorry”, “stop”, “go”, “time”, “sun” and “juice”. And just in this past week your verbal language has exploded too! You’re saying a total of 18 words now – the ones you’ve started saying this month are “ball”, “cup”, “duck”, “chair”, “bear”, “shoes”, “blocks”, “cereal”, “book”, “butterfly”, “hi”, “socks”, “bread”, “coat”, and “cookie”. That gives you a vocabulary (not counting duplicates of signs and spoken words) of 107 total words. That’s amazing! Of course, I’m about the only person who understands fully half of those signs and words, so I get to act as your full-time interpreter. Oh, and you’ve finally realized that dogs do more than pant. If I ask you what Molly says you say “wooo” (your version of “woof!”) and Murphy says “rarararar” (your version of “arf, arf, arf!”)

You’ve learned how to build lego (duplo) towers this month – you can connect a dozen or so of the 2×2 blocks before they get too unstable and start falling apart. And you’re very into mothering your dolls, giving them bottles and binkies and making sure they’re covered with blankets…that is, until you drop them on their heads to go do something else. Reading is still one of your very favorite things to do, and you have a dozen or so of your favorite books that you’ve made up names for, mostly in sign. You’re also starting to become interested in the actual words on the page, pointing them out to me while we read.

It’s amazing how much stuff you’ve learned in the past 16 months. You know where a couple dozen body parts are, including your elbows and your cheeks. I would estimate that you understand about 90% of what people say to you. You’ve learned that to watch Blue’s Clues or Signing Time you need the T.V. remote (and Mommy’s help) and that the cupboard next to the refrigerator is a seemingly endless source of snack food. You’ve even figured out how to push a little step-stool up to the sink so I can help you wash your hands before meals.

Speaking of food…you’re starting to be a little pickier about it finally. Not so much what you’ll eat, because you still eat almost anything we cook, but more how much and when you’ll eat. Some days you eat as much as I do at a meal, other days I wonder whether the dogs are sneaking you food when we’re not looking because you hardly eat anything. The dogs get a lot of extra on those days, and are now on a diet because the vet says they’re each 5-10 pounds overweight! The craziest new thing you’ve tried (and liked) this month is sushi – just cucumber rolls, no raw fish, but sushi nonetheless. We skipped the wasabi, but maybe we’ll let you try that next time.

It’s so much fun watching your personality start to develop, and seeing all the new things you learn every day. It’s amazing to look back at pictures from just a year ago and see how much you’ve grown since then. I’m sure I’ll never be able to record or remember all the cute, funny and crazy things you do, but I hope that these little glimpses of your life will make you smile in a few years.

Love, Mommy

Dear Carolyn,

What an amazing month it’s been! You’re definitely turning into quite the little toddler. You have 5.5 teeth (that 6th tooth has been about to pop for three weeks now!) and are solidly into 18 month clothes, although there are a few 12 month things that still fit you.

I’m very happy we chose to teach you to sign, since all you say at this point is “mama” (when you want something and I’m not getting it fast enough), “dada” (when you want to charm daddy) and “uh-oh” (when you throw your cup off the high chair tray…on purpose). Not that there’s anything wrong with only having three words – you’d just be a much more frustrated little toddler if you didn’t sign! You know 70 signs now, adding “sad”, “grumpy”, “frog”, “swim”, “fruit”, “vegetable”, “boy”, “girl”, “mommy”, “pig”, “orange” (the fruit), “car”, “work”, “home”, “wind”, “rain”, “silly” and “tree” since last month. It’s so cute when I tell you that Daddy’s home and you sign “daddy home”! You’re also getting really good at animal noises, saying “mmm” for cows, “baa” for sheep, and “meh!” for cats. To the dogs’ dismay, you think they just pant, and refuse to entertain the notion that they might say “arf”, “woof” or “ruff”.

I’ve noticed that your imagination has started going wild this month. You give your dollies, bears, and mommy “tea” out of your tea set, and you even go as far as giving your lovey doll the extra binky that’s always in your crib. It’s very, very sweet. You also love to talk on your toy phones. When you have your toy cell phone in the car (thanks to Uncle Dan) you sit back there with it up to your head saying “ah-ah? ahhh. ah-ah-ah.” Is that what we sound like to you when we talk on the phone? Another super-favorite toy is the Lego Duplos set that your Aunt Jeannie gave you for Christmas – the one you’re not “supposed” to use until you’re 2. Well, you can’t quite put them together, but you sure can take them apart – and you love to take them apart, especially after Mommy builds something fantastic. In fact, there are never two Legos stuck together anywhere when you’re through with them.

You’re big into doing things yourself. At dinner the other night you actually used a fork to stab food and got it to your mouth all by yourself! You’re also protesting having your food cut into little bits. Your Grandma keeps telling the story about how she remembers being really little and wanting the whole waffle, rather than the little bites she was being fed. So I try to be sensitive to your need to have the whole whatever and if it’s something that isn’t dangerous I’ll give it to you whole…or at least in bigger pieces. You still eat anything we put in front of you, usually in copious amounts, but I’m expecting the picky toddler phase to start any day now…

Sleep is a challenge sometimes. You don’t protest going to bed all that much, but you do sit up there and babble to your doll, read your book and play with your aquarium sometimes for as long as an hour. I guess you need time to yourself just as much as we do, and the only time you really get to yourself is when you’re in your crib. It’s only a problem when I hear “uh-oh” over the monitor a couple of times. That usually means you’ve thrown both binkies and your dolly out of the crib out of boredom, and since you won’t go to sleep without those things I have to come to their rescue.

Just remember, you may be 15 months old and fast becoming a little independent, headstrong child, but you’ll always be my baby!

Love, Mommy