15 months

Well, you are 15 months. I let 14 months go by unrecorded but there is so much these past few months that is changing and I feel that recording it before it’s gone is so very urgent. I want to grab these fleeting moments and pin them down for a second or two.

Let’s start with the most recent, and somewhat disturbing development. You can climb. You can get onto chairs and tables. You are monkey like in your agility. This is very very bad. I mean, it’s cool, you can do stuff, but it’s very bad, for you and the rest of us. Those benches near the table that you like to pull yourself up on and stand on while grabbing at everything on the table? Those aren’t very stable. Those were mommy’s first ever attempt at building benches, and they are about 2 inches too narrow at the base for the height. They wobble. Of course, I haven’t built new ones because the wood for those ones was free, I’ve not got access to space an power tools right now, and well, have you seen the way you go non stop all day long? When exactly am I going to fit furniture building into the daily routine? But, the fact remains, those benches are tippy, and you are constantly in danger of falling off of them or pulling them down on top of you. STOP IT. YOU ARE GIVING ME A HEART ATTACK!

Also, that stuff? on top of the table? Yeah, that’s our stuff. We put it there to keep it away from you. We’re all mean like that. Every single member of your family likes to take things that you want and deliberately put them out of reach so that you can’t get them. Once you stop tearing things to little itty bitty shreds, eating things you shouldn’t, and gleefully flinging handfuls of important stuff over your head until every single things you can reach is on the floor instead of where it belongs, then we’ll stop trying to hide it from you. In the meantime, this climbing thing means we’re all running out of places to put it. Suddenly you are tall enough to grab your brother’s pencil from where he left it resting near the table’s edge, and then you immediately bite the eraser off. We are running out of pencils with erasers still intact.

Another recent development is the screaming, or rather the addition of several more decibels to your already impressive repertoire. Every time I start doing something in the kitchen you are convinced that I am holding out on you. You walk in and hold you hands up, while coyly and sweetly begging for food. When I don’t give you what you think I ought to give you, which is quite often, you up the volume. When I still don’t give you say, the raw bread dough, or the minced garlic, or the flour, or raw chicken, or whatever it is that you are so vigorously demanding, the volume goes up until the kitchen is flooded with screams. That’s when my mommy switch kicks in and I don’t actually hear you anymore. I stop registering the noise. You don’t get it when you are screaming anyway. I always wait until you stop screaming and then show you the sign for food and please and wait until you try before giving you anything.

It’s really adorable when you do do it by the way. Keep that up. You rub your chest first and then stick your finger on your lips while intoning, “ooh?” Please, food?

And the night waking is 0-60 in less than three seconds. There is waking, and then there is screaming bloody murder, and they happen about the same instant. We’ll blame that on the new molars, but still, could you chill?

You love your shoes. You bring them to me, I”m often sitting on the toilet for some reason and you hold them up to show me, “oohss?”

You follow me around with them until I stop and put them on you feet. You like to start the morning with nothing but a diaper and shoes on your feet. I’m fascinated by the way you almost always find matching pairs.

You like pretty things, clothes and scarves and jewelry. I ask you which outfit you’d like to wear and you grab one or the other and hug it and carry it all over the house, showing it to daddy and your siblings until I help you get it on. You walk up to people and pull on your dress, sometimes pulling it over your head as if to say, “Do you see this dress I’m wearing? I picked it out? Isn’t it a lovely shade of pink? And did you notice the sparkly flower on the front?”

You love to go outside. That’s probably why you like shoes so much. You get all dressed and then go to the door and try to open it. You’re all ready to go outside and play. There is much crying when I don’t let you.

You love to “help” mommy. You take the freshly folded rags and kitchen towels from the kitchen cupboard and pile them on the living room floor. You like to take things from the dishwasher as I’m putting them in. You also like to hand me things to put away when I’m unloading. And you love to shut it, often, even though I need it to stay open and then clap your hands in a self satisfied way.

You also like to help in the bathroom. You are completely fascinated by toilet paper, and while you don’t quite understand it’s function, though I often see you taking tiny little pieces and rubbing them across your nose in a fair approximation of nose wiping, you are very eager to lend a hand. You tear tiny little pieces of toilet tissue off of the roll and try to hand them to me, or stuff them into the bowl between my legs if I happen to be sitting there. You beam the whole time, convinced that you are being very helpful. Often I can tell you have been in the bathroom alone because when we flip up the seat there a dozens of tiny wads of paper stuffed into the space between it and the rim.

You clap now. Probably because when you are actually helpful, like putting all of your blocks back into their little box, we clap and say, “Yay, you did it.” So now every time you do something you are proud of, you look up at us and clap your little hands together. And every time I say good job you respond by clapping your hands. You’ve also started giving your siblings high fives, sort of.

And there is the singing. When you hear music, you sing along. Sometimes it sounds more like yelling, but your voice usually gets softer and you repeat the same tone over and over and hold it for long periods of time. You really like it if I sing along with you while you do this, especially if I harmonize.

You are no longer content to sit in your little seat in the kitchen while the rest of us sit at the table. You hate being so far away from the real action. We don’t have a high chair that works at the table so you end up sitting on my lap and grabbing everything in sight and then putting it on my plate, at which point you try and force feed it to me. This is getting messy and I am now motivated to find a way to tie you down while allowing you to join us for dinner. Stay posted, there will be new developments on that real soon.

You love to wander and explore, but you are occasionally shy of strangers now, and down right terrified of other things. For some reason one weekend you decided that Beema’s dogs were scary and you screamed every time one of them came near. They are good dogs, gentle with kids, if a little too enthusiastic at times and I can see how the sight of three of them, all taller than you and running to say hello might be scary at times, but you weren’t afraid of them the week before, and you aren’t afraid of them now, it was just those two weeks that had you so scared. Now you’re back to chasing them, and the cats, and giggling.

When you are feeling timid though you grab my legs, right at the knee, and hide behind me while peeking your head out between my legs. Everyone thinks that this is absolutely adorable and sometimes I wonder if that’s the real reason why you do it. You have started trying to move me around to better suit your desires. You grab my knee and drag my leg, if it’s cooperating, into the kitchen so you can point at your water bottle. You push me toward the bed room when you are tired.

You have recently discovered your, how do I say this without getting the wrong kind of google hits, ah, er, um, girl parts? I had put you in the sink for a quick bath and I heard you giggling so I glanced down and saw two things at once, you finger wedged firmly between your legs and your face, your eyes wide with delighted surprise. You looked up at me, chuckling and with your customary wonder you seemed to ask, “Did you know about this? Did you know this was here?” And then I laughed too because you’re just too darn funny. Hopefully you don’t start sticking rocks in there like your sister did.

You love to join me in she shower. You now climb in the bathtub all by yourself and now it’s a race to see if I can get you naked before you throw yourself under the running water. Once you are in the you sit yourself down on my feet, lean your face on my legs like they are your own personal massage table, wrap your little arms around my legs to keep from falling, and take a nap. Seriously, you fall asleep sitting on my feet. It makes many of the aspects of showering tricky, but you don’t seem to mind if you get water in your face. You may shift around a bit and yell, but then you go back to sleep. One time you laid your little head down on my foot, and stretched your body out in the tub and took a nap. If I could figure out how to dry you off and get you diapered without waking you we good get you to sleep every night this way.

Last night you gave your dad a hug for the first time. You walked up to him and wrapped your arms around his neck and gave him a kiss. Technically that should go in your 16 month letter because this one is late, but I may forget, and he was so excited. By 16 months I’ll be writing something about how you are now a toddler.

Everyday you seem to get more personality. It’s really fascinating still to watch babies turn into people and their personalities emerge. It’s especially fun for me to watch you, because I’m your mama, and I love you so.