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