Twenty Months

Dear Nate,

Today you are 20 months old. You are no longer a teen-toddler (I have no idea what that means but I just like the way it sounds). Part of what it must mean, though, is that you really are in toddlerhood now, heading straight for preschooler age. Your dad and I look at you now and there are few remnants of babyhood left to you. You look and move like a little boy now, with a little less of that toddler tummy, much less early-toddler uncertainty, and even more agility than you already had.

This month has been a fun one for you. It was your second Christmas and the first holiday you've actually understood and appreciated opening presents, which made it immensely fun for your dad and I. The moment in which your dad and I brought out the wrapped kitchen from Grammy and Pop-Pop and you realized that it 1) was a present and 2) was for you will remain one of my favorites.

And now you have a new obsession: Thomas the Tank Engine. Uncle Kenny bought you a Thomas bath toy for Christmas and now you have to take the little Thomas with you everywhere. You ride your trike around the house with Thomas in your hand, sit on the couch with Thomas, take him in the crib for naps, keep him on the table while you eat - you are never without your "choo choo!" (As I write this, however, I have to admit that I don't know where Thomas is right now and am totally scared of not being able to find him later.) You'll point to your Thomas toy, then to the remote, and then to the TV, which is your way of telling me you want me to put Thomas on Netflix. (Thomas on Netflix is how Mommy gets to take a quick shower, which is very useful.)

But this doesn't diminish how much you love to be active. You run laps around the island in the kitchen and love to be chased. You love to kick your big bouncy ball around the house and run with it (like you're dribbling a soccer ball). You are trying to figure out how to jump but all you can manage right now is to get up on your toes.

You mastered climbing into and out of your high chair (mostly, except for one fall) so it was time to move on and this month also brought your booster seat, which you are very happy with. What you're not always happy with, though, is eating. This month really brought out the whole picky eating thing and now it's basically a guess as to what you'll eat on any given day. Last night for dinner I made stew. Four of your favorite foods are shredded beef, potatoes, carrots, and peas - all of which were in the stew. However, you ate none of it. Every time I tried to give you some, you turned your head and simply said, "No. No." So your dinner was applesauce, carrot sticks, and animal crackers. But we keep trying. I know this won't last forever and you still eat plenty of good food, so it's really not a problem, just something new from our little boy who used to eat anything.

You're still a good sleeper and seemed to have gotten past the little glitch in the past two months where you were waking up early or in the middle of the night. You're back to sleeping roughly 7pm to 7am and taking a nap from about 12:30pm to 2pm. All that running you do means you need a lot of sleep, so I always feel better when you're resting well.

You love to say things twice - once in your regular voice, and once in your monster voice: "Oh no way!" then in a growly voice, Oh no way!" You love puppies (all dogs are puppies) and anything crunchy is a cookie. You love to look out the window at all the cars in the morning and help Dada get the leashes ready for the dogs to go outside. You love to give kisses and hugs (you give me a big hug when I put Thomas on) and you love to snuggle on the couch right after you wake up. You love to help zip up your coat or your pajamas and sometimes you can put your own shoes on (and even if I help you, you like to close the velcro). Sometimes you pat your diaper to let me know when it needs to be changed, but you fairly consistently don't like your diaper actually being changed. That process has become a bit of a battle, but you're also definitely not ready for potty training so we'll just battle it through for now.

You are joyous, curious, silly little man. You are loving and sweet but with the best glint in your eye because your curiousity always has mischief right around the corner.

Happy 20 months to my handsome little man! Mommy and Daddy love you so much.

Love,

Mommy.

Nowhere-Near-Wordless Wednesday

Since Nate started climbing into his high chair by himself last month (by first climbing on a dining room chair, then crawling across the dining room table before stepping into the high chair), I've wanted to get him a booster seat. But bills and Christmas gifts had priority, so he continued his climbing every day. Last week, what I feared finally happened - he fell from the high chair. He was trying to back off the tray, slipped, hit his head on the dining room table, and then landed on the floor on his tush... not happy. He cried for about 10 seconds but then he was fine.

This is what always happens. He does something daring (he's fearless), takes a small tumble eventually, scares the life out of me, and then is fine in 10 seconds and (I think) even more fearless. It's amazing that I have no grey hairs. I'm convinced one day I'll wake up with 50, bang.

But anyway, that one spill was it for me. The booster seat plan was going into motion - and this past Monday, it did.

Cutest little booster seat man ever. (And is there a more quintessential toddler lunch than chicken nuggets and carrot sticks?)

He loves his booster seat and didn't care in the slightest that we moved the high chair out. I love how easily he transitions from one thing to the next. Even more, I love that I have to worry less about that particular fall happening again. But I really love that now it feels even more like he's sitting at the table with us. My big little man.

New Year, Old Clothes

As I drove to work this morning and was thinking about what I'd face when I got there (the start of the new academic quarter, new students, coworkers I haven't seen in two weeks because either I or they were on vacation, etc) and how I was wearing (again) one of my go-to outfits for work: grey plaid pants (very subtle plaid - definitely a neutral per Clinton and Stacy's rules), blue buttondown shirt (which is a little snug with the holiday weight I've gained) and grey flowy sweater (which is decidedly less flowy than it was in the fall, also due to holiday weight gain) - I thought, "Well, nothing's changed except the year."

And that's kind of where I am. I like to be a big proponent of perpetual self renewal and exploration and improvement, even when it's wrapped in the New Year days, but this year I just haven't been able to muster up the get-up-and-go for it. There is too much of the struggle of 2011 that isn't subsiding simply because there's a new calendar on the wall and that is making it hard for me to feel any of the drive and hope that resolutions and ideas and wishes need to have behind them.

I usually love winter. I love the chill and bundling up and snow. But ever since last winter's disastrous utility bills, I've been fearing this winter because if we have bills like that again, we're sunk. Every week, instead of wondering excitedly when I'll be able to introduce Nate to playing in the snow (which I'm guessing he probably won't actually like), I fear a snowy forecast because it means a higher heating bill.

Everything - simply everything - in my life right now is tied down with concerns about money. It's hard to find renewal and inspiration when you are basically homebound due to financial constraints. As I think that out loud to myself, though, I immediately think of people who are homebound due to physical or mental disability and how I would fully believe this does not force them to live a "lesser than" life - so why should it for me?

There are things I can do, things I plan to do. For example, I need to finish my incomplete course from last spring. It's a required course, so if I don't finish it by May, I'll have to retake it. That would be seriously stupid on my part. So I just need to buckle down and do it and stop griping internally that I don't have a workspace, that I can't concentrate at home. I just have to. Period.

Maybe completing some big as well as some small things I need to get done will help me feel better. Not having stuff hanging over me always helps. We still won't be any closer to paying the rent without difficulty, but any lessening of concerns should be helpful. (I think. Can't hurt to try.)

2011 had some truly stellar moments, but it also had a million small (and some big) difficult moments. For 2012, all I wish is that the ratio flips. Life will have difficult moments; it's how we grow. But I really could do with the universe's stellar moments tipping in my favor a bit more this year. I'm not looking for favors or handouts. I will work hard as hell to deserve more; I just feel like 2011 was a lot of work without the rewards and opportunities.

I have a cautious feeling in my gut that great things are coming. I said as much to a friend a few weeks ago and really, truly meant it. I fear that 2012 will be 2011 all over again, but it can't be. It already was; it cannot be again. What comes can only be new and what is new is still yet to be determined, so I have to reason I can still affect change.

So onward we trudge. Upwards, 2012, here we go.

19 Months

Dear Nate,

This month is the first month I've ever not completed your monthly letter on the day you turned a new month in age. And it certainly isn't because I have nothing to say about you. If anything, it's because I'm too busy running around with you! (In truth, it really is just such a busy time and given the choice, I'd rather spend our little time with you than at my computer.)

I'm joking about running around with you... but only partly. Your favorite activity every night after dinner is to run around the island in the kitchen with someone or Buster chasing after you. You will run laps around the island until you are out of breath.

You are our little adventurer. You will never hold my hand when we walk somewhere; you hate being carried from the car to the house (which means it takes us foreeeeever to get from the car to the house because you insist on investigating everything in the driveway and picking up every acorn you see until both of your fists are full of them). You love to investigate the perimeter of any playground and then walk all through the play structures. You aren't afraid to climb up on anything and love to go down the slide all by yourself.

You're also becoming much more opinionated. We're seeing more and more toddler tendencies in you. You want to be able to make choices. You will only sit for a story at bedtime if you were allowed to choose it first. Sometimes you don't want to finish all of your yogurt. Sometimes you want to just play with the yogurt cup. Sometimes you eat the whole yogurt, start to finish, and then want to leave the table without incident. We never really know, but we're happy to allow you to do what you want because supporting your curiosity and independence is really important to us.

You've hit a little bump in your sleeping - taking naps that are an hour and 15 minutes long instead of the two+ hour naps you were taking, and sometimes waking up in the middle of the night and actually requiring soothing to get back to sleep - but from what I've read, it's normal for this age because you're learning so much and, hopefully, it will smooth out in a couple of months.

The other day I found you trying to climb into your crib to get a toy you threw in there. Somehow, amazingly, you have not climbed out yet (I fear even writing that because I know I'm jinxing us). But you climb up on any chair in the house. You climb up on the dining room table. You slide down off your changing table. You'd get in the bathtub fully clothed if I'd let you. There isn't anywhere you don't want to go and that you don't fully believe you can go.

You still love to be picked up - when you want to be. You'll stand on the very tips of your toes and stretch your arms as far up as they go as you insist, "Up. UP. UP." If no one picks you up or, worse yet, actually says, "No, not right now," your arms drop to your sides and then you raise them back up and drop them back down in frustration as you pout. This is sometimes followed by you gently laying down on the floor and crying (wouldn't want to hurt ourselves collapsing on the floor, of course). I think my favorite is when you run into another room to lie down and throw a mini-tantrum. I hate to say it, but your dad and I laugh pretty much every time you get upset because, really, it's just funny, and it's always over in less than 15 seconds. Other than that, you're still our smiley, laughing, gleeful little man.

You love to get whatever you want on your own and then tell us you got it: "I dot it, I dot it!" And I can tell there's so much more you're trying to tell us but the words just aren't forming quite yet. You've decided to call Buster "B" (don't know why, but it's cute - like your own personal nickname for him). You love to pat Oreo and say, "Good girl" and then just keep on walking (if Oreo lets you anywhere near her in the first place). At your 18 month appointment with Dr. Jill a few weeks ago, she was really happy to hear all the words and sentences you have (about 35 works and 10 sentences), although you did wreak havoc on her exam room (nearly jamming the electronic scale and shutting the lights off mid-exam). You were so into everything in the room that she told us it was obvious she didn't need to ask about your gross motor skills!

As of that appointment, you weighed 32 lbs and were 33 1/2 inches tall. You're in mostly 2T clothing now, still size 7 shoes, and size 6 diapers now. You fight a lot of your diaper changes, but you generally don't mind getting dressed if we do it quickly enough. You're pretty content in the car most of the time and don't mind being dropped off to stay with Grandma or when Kate comes over when we have to work. Overall, you are a toddler through and through but you are still pretty agreeable, for which we're really grateful.

You dad and I continue to love you more and more with each day, thinking every day it's not possible to love you more, and then we do. You are amazing and wonderful.

Love,

Mommy

Family faces

As I mentioned yesterday, my dad sent out an email for my sister's birthday with pictures of her as a baby. What followed was a slew of emails back and forth between me, my sister, and our parents, all remarking on how incredible it is that we can see so much of the kids in my sister's baby pictures - even my own son.

It's nearly indescribable, that feeling I got looking at a picture of my sister as a baby and instantly realizing something of Nate in her face. I showed one picture in particular to the hubby and he said, "Well, really, I see Nate in YOUR face."

Oh, right. I was in the photo but was just so amazed by seeing a broader family resemblance that I hadn't thought to look at my own face, but he's right, of course.

 

 my sister & me, 1980
(For what it's worth - in this picture, my sister looks like our maternal grandmother.
I keep expecting her to ask me if I want a pierogi.)

 Nate, October 2011 

I could look at these photos all day. Genetics is fascinating to me. It's science but it feels like magic.