Before I get into more sentimental musings, let me tell you how far you’ve come in the last month. In the last four weeks alone, you have managed to learn to pull yourself up to standing (and get back down again with grace and style) and cruise the furniture. We’ve caught you free standing for a few seconds here and there. And the other day, you were playing by the stairs and suddenly your feet weren’t on the floor anymore - you’d managed to get up one stair.
You are the king of the main floor. The whole place is childproofed now - gates at the top of the stairs and in both kitchen entrances. We’ve set up a fantastic play area for you with all kinds of lovely toys. And you go right for the electrical sockets, the laptop and the DVD player.
You are still a very happy little boy, for the most part. You’re taking a real interest in your surroundings. You noticed and love the Peter Ellenshaw postcard in your room - I put it in there one day and you saw it right away when you woke up from your nap. I’m thinking of ordering you a Peter Ellenshaw poster for your room. We finally put up your wall art (you know, almost a year after you were born), and you love it. You like looking at the pictures and at photos on the walls around the house. And a few weeks ago you started something new - you noticed the framed photo of Boo in the living room, and every day you ask to say hello to it. (We bring it down to you and you point at it and say things to him.) You also love your Disney snowglobe - part of getting up from your nap is watching it play a few times.
You still love music - your Daddy has been introducing you to classical music. You love grooving to Vivaldi and Corelli, but aren’t so keen on the Germanics. You enjoy the funk and jazz he plays you, too. And you still adore dancing with us.
Your new favourite thing to do is to crawl all over me while I lie on the floor. You put your little fingers in my belly button, you snuggle up to my belly, and you crawl all over my legs. You still do the “Mommy Recharge” when you play - you’ll just crawl up to me if I’m sitting on the floor or the couch, come for a little snuggle for a moment, and then go back to playing.
We hang our Christmas cards from little festive clothespins on a string along the banister. Over the holidays, you enjoyed looking at the cards so much. We’d take one down for you every day, let you touch it and play with it. But now that the holidays are over, it seemed so bare. So I made you another clothesline for cards - we’ll always have some around, whether they are for Valentine’s Day or Easter or a birthday. Now you know you can always look at your cards.
When we go on our afternoon adventure, and it involves the car, you always smile at me as I look behind me to pull out of the garage. I think you like going out in the afternoons. Sometimes we go to playgroup, or to visit a friend, or to a museum. Or we go run an errand and get some groceries. You always seem to enjoy our adventures, whatever we do.
I’ve been trying to go to the playgroup at the Ontario Early Years Centre as much as possible over the last few weeks. I want you to play with other kids as much as you can. Plus, I want you to already be comfortable there so it’s easy for Granny or Grandma or Daddy to bring you. You don’t currently excel at the circle time, but you’re learning. First, you saw circle time as so convenient because all the good toys were suddenly free. Then, you saw it as your personal time with the educator, and you’d crawl up to her and sit in her lap while she tried to lead the songs. If we keep taking you, you may eventually sit still. Maybe.
You’re a very gentle little boy. You can be trusted with pets, like Zaphod, Murray and Missy Bean. You still need to be supervised, obviously, but you’re so good to them. You pet them gently. You’re also fairly gentle with other kids, but you don’t understand why it’s ok to pull yourself up using Mommy or Daddy but not the 11-month-old at playgroup. And you still go for the eyes. *grin*
You love playing peekaboo around corners in the house. You enjoy being pushed around on your car - it won’t be long before you can use it with the walker setting. You like to sit by your book cupboard, open the door, and choose books to look at. Sometimes we look at them together and sometimes you just want to look at them by yourself.
You still have no teeth. But the teething has escalated - I didn’t think it could, but it has. At one point, you refused to eat. (That has NEVER happened before.) We ended up feeding you little bits of frozen fruit, and that helped. You can feed yourself finger food now! And you love to! It’s wonderful to see you putting puffs, cheerios, cheese, toast bites, bits of mushrooms, grapes, potato and more.
Your nose has been running for more than a week now, you poor thing. It’s made things difficult for you. I thought it was teething related, but it may have been a cold. We brought you to the doctor and she confirmed you had no ear infection or chest congestion, which put my mind at ease. She also noticed that your fingers were in very, very rough shape. Between the eczema and putting your fingers in your mouth, they had become so raw and cracked. We had tried band-aids and polysporin, but apparently that wasn’t the thing to do. She prescribed a cream for them and after just a few days we’ve already noticed a big improvement. That makes us very happy.
She also gave us some recommendations for bath time - we’re to bathe you every day instead of every two days (when possible), keep the baths short and not too hot, and rub oil on you before drying you off. Bath time isn’t the fun time it used to be for you - you hate having your head tipped back to rinse your hair (since you won’t do it of your own accord, we have to force you) and you want to stand up in the tub all the time. But you do love being in the water!
We have a small celebration planned for your birthday, with some of the people who love you best. We’ve invited a few of your friends that have known you since the early Well Baby Clinic days, and your Aunt Natalie will be in town to celebrate with you, too.
Big changes are coming, little dude. I go back to work the day after your birthday. Granny, Grandma, Daddy and I will be taking care of you, with Granny doing the lion’s share. I know you’ll be very happy with this arrangement. After six months, we’ll find you a day care spot where you can play with other kids, too. But I am going to miss you more than I can even describe. So I won’t - not right now. I’ll tell you about that in a separate letter.
Do you have any idea what this past year has meant to us, little man? Your Daddy and I expected that being your parents would be fun. We never dreamed it would be this much fun. You bring joy into our lives every day. We love sharing our life with you. Every day, we tell you how awesome you are. And you are. Even when things are difficult and you’re not having the best time, you’re still amazing. You amaze us with your patience, your sunny disposition, your laid-back attitude and your fantastic laugh.
We say that our family mantra is “We want to be invited back.” And you’ve never let us down - everywhere we bring you, you are well behaved and sweet. It helps that we try to read your signs and leave before things turn ugly. But so far, we’ve always been invited back.
We knew from the moment we first held you in our arms that you would change our lives. We didn’t realize that in the process, we’d become better people. Thank you, we owe you so much.
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