Dear Moe (27 Months)

Hello, darling. Summer is finally here, and we’ve had a wonderful month. The warm weather has brought so many lovely moments.

You have greatly enjoyed spending time out back in the garden with Granny, helping her water her flowers and digging in your own little spot in the garden. You have your own shovel, but you know where Granny keeps hers, and you like to seek it out. You love working with Granny when she digs up dandelions. She puts the tool in the ground, and you help her push it up, and then your job is to pick up the dandelion and put it in the weed bucket.  

We’ve also loved going to the Farmers Market again. It’s in a new place now, near Brewer Park, and that means that when we’re done touring the market and we’ve bought our snacks (usually some baked sweet potato wedges and a cookie) we sometimes have time to go to the park and play.

You do love playtime at the park - any park. You are happy to find a little patch of sand to call your own, to bury your cars and dig them up, (“dig, dig, dig,” you say to yourself), and to occasionally climb up a play structure. You’re not much for the slide, and you don’t like the swings, but you do love to climb.

You love the water - you have always loved your bath, the water table, playing at the sink, and jumping in puddles. You love pouring water from one container to another. And for the past two summers you have greatly enjoyed swimming in Uncle Ted’s pool. So it made sense to me to enroll us in parent-and-tot swimming lessons. They are on Sunday mornings at Canterbury Pool. During the first class, you were pretty unhappy. You cried a bit, complained a lot, and didn’t participate in the class even though we were being asked to do things I know you can do, like blow bubbles in the water. But when we got home, you talked about the class. You talked about how your Nemo swim diaper got wet, how you blew bubbles, how we played with a flutterboard shaped like a turtle. I was confident the second week would go better.

It did not. You cried openly and begged to leave. I remained firm, stayed ridiculously and falsely positive, and we pushed through. We took a break on the stairs of the pool, but I don’t think it helped. We went back for a third week, but had to leave halfway through the lesson. You burst into tears as soon as we got into the swimming pool area, and cried so loudly that it got disruptive. We got home, and Daddy said that my face was full of defeat and yours was full of joy. You were just so happy to be home.

We brought you to Uncle Ted’s for Victoria Day, and I was hoping that you might want to swim in his pool, but you had no interest and made that quite clear. So we set you up with the beer bucket full of water, and you sat happily in there and played in there for over an hour. At one point, you were sitting in there, naked from the waist down, eating ribs and yelling, “MORE MEAT!” Your Daddy was so proud. I felt that I should point out that there was a nicer way to ask, but couldn’t because I was laughing so hard.

You have so many words now. You use four word sentences, you use the pronoun “I”, and your vocabulary improves every day. You love to point at things and ask, “Who’s this guy?” (This comes from when we read books together, and I point at animals and ask you that question.) We don’t always understand what you’re saying, but you certainly do. The other day, you went on for about five minutes about the bottom of your Mack truck - I have no idea what you were going on about, but you were very passionate and wanted everyone to know. Other discernible sentences have included “Mark play with little Mack” (about how Mark came over the day before and was playing with your little Mack toy), “Dump truck wheels turn round” and “Mommy, I help, too?” (And you are such a big help, too. You helped me sweep, you helped me clean the stairs.) I love the way you say “strawberries” because it sounds like “shrubberies”.

We had a lovely visit with Great Grandpa Reg this month. I wish we could go see him more often, but so often one of us is sick and that isn’t fair to him. But when we do go, you just love it. You pull your toys out of your bag one by one and show them to him, you tell him all about each one. His whole face lights up when he sees you, too. It’s wonderful.

We still read books every day - some of your favourites this past month have been The Wrong Book (about poor Nicholas Ickle) and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. You still like The House of Twelve Bunnies, too. But your favourite by far is Meet Jack Truck - Robin has another book from that series at her house, called Smash and Crash. You love it so much that we even brought it home for a few days.

You are such a good singer, too, sweetie. You can sing Twinkle, Twinkle, and a lot of the Alphabet Song. But our favourite song to sing is Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. I sing you “Bird Song” at bedtime - I sing it twice, and during the second round, I put you in your crib. Sometimes you ask for “More Bird Song?” but then I tell you to sing it yourself, and you do, and it’s wonderful. You love hearing it in the car, too. (“Car sing Bird Song, Mommy?”)

You have a fantastic sense of humour. You hide things under your knees and ask where they’ve gone. It’s my job to guess a few places before asking, “Are they under your KNEES?” and then you cackle away. You sometimes pretend to be asleep (you close your eyes extra tight and make snoring noises). You can be so mischievous - and whenever you are, your dimples comes out to play. You’re a joy to be around, and are generally a good listener. You clean up your messes, and you give wonderful hugs and kisses.

We’re going to need to find a new consequence for you for when you don’t listen, though. You enjoy a good time out. I’ve even tried having you stand with your hands against the wall, but you like it. You’ve even asked for it occasionally. I think perhaps the best way to approach it is to take away your plasma car.

Also, it will soon be time to potty train you in earnest. You can pee on the potty - you have many times. But you won’t go when you’re busy or feel you have something better to do. The only way to get around that is to have you wearing underwear and feel what it’s like to have an accident. So on a weekend next month, when I’m home with you for three days in a row, we’ll remove all the rugs from the living room and get you into underwear. And we’ll work hard at getting this done. I know you’re going to be great.

I love you so much, little Moe. You bring joy to our lives in ways we never thought possible. We look at you in awe - you’re our very own son and you’re just so wonderful. We’re so proud of you when you succeed, and are hopefully teaching you to be proud of yourself, too.