18 Month Update

Dear Lana,

Today you turn 18 months old – a whole year and a half! To celebrate we began the morning with a cup of milk, a little light reading, a serious tantrum come time to get dressed, and a breakfast of grapes. In short, like every other day this month.

It really is amazing how much you change in just a matter of weeks. Last month I wrote about your obsession with cheese and your stubborn refusal to have your hands cleaned. This month you are absolutely enamored with fruit (grapes and oranges are your favorite) and determined to keep your hands clean. You’re doing a much better job of consistently using utensils, but when you do elect to eat with your hands you stop after every bite or two, hold out your dirty hand and say, “Eww, eww, eww” until the offending digits are wiped clean. Do you have any idea how surprising this is for me, to wipe your hand without you squealing like a little pig? The first few times that this happened I gave you a quick inspection to check for signs of alien abduction.

And as thrilled as I am to have you delighting in healthy fare, I am also well aware that an all fruit diet makes very bad things happen in your diaper. Some of your post-grape-binge poops have been so stinky that you at last abandoned your policy for denying their existence. Instead you scrunch up your face and correctly identify the source of the stink as “POO!!” then helpfully point to your diaper. You’ve also become strangely intrigued with the contents of the diapers once they are removed, pointing to wet diapers and chanting “pee, pee, pee,” while referring to poopy diapers as “dirrrty.” Now that you are starting to grasp the mechanics of onesies and twosies, you often call one or the other out just before you do the deed. Unfortunately, just before really means mere milliseconds before, so I’m out of luck if you happen to be sans diaper when you make the call. I’m also suddenly aware that you do much more than just bathe in the bathtub.

In non-body function news, you continue to talk more every day and can now name everyone in our immediate family, save for a couple of small quirks. First off, you rarely call me Mama to my face – only under the direst circumstances will you say “Mama” instead of your usual grunt that means, “Hey woman, get over here and feed me grapes!” And when we look at pictures that include me, you almost always identify me as Daddy. I suspect you do this just to annoy me since you have no problem pointing out Mama when other people ask you to. But, at least I’m faring better than poor Rico, who will forever be called “Dog” as far as you are concerned.

One of the few times that you will reliably call me Mama is when you wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning. Your father and I typically adhere to a five minute waiting period when you wake in the night since you will often cry for a couple of minutes and then go right back to sleep. That is so much harder to do now that we hear your little voice calling over the baby monitor: “Daddy? Mama? Daddy? Ganny?” Luckily you have not yet learned how much power you have with that – how my heart melts every time I hear you call my name.

I can’t imagine anything more amazing than watching a child grow from a peanut with a heartbeat to a walking, talking person full of new ideas and enthusiasm for life. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity, my precious little girl.

Love,
Mama

Can’t Top Pop

Two weekends ago my mother (Granny T) and father (Pop) came by to visit with Lana while John and I played our last match of the mixed-doubles tennis season (it was a crushing victory, in case you care). During the visit, Pop took a mylar balloon that I gave to Lana on Valentine’s Day and began throwing it around the living room by the weight at the end of its string. Eventually the balloon became lodged in our ceiling fan and wacky hijinks ensued.

End of story, right? Not hardly. Lana now takes great pleasure in retelling the details of the incident at least five times a day, EVERY day. It begins with animated pointing at the ceiling fan and chants of “Pop, Boon (balloon), Pop, Pop!” I am at this point obligated to indicate that I understand what she’s telling me – “Yes, Pop threw the balloon up into the fan.” She then nods happily, her whole body bobbing up and down as she recalls the thrill of seeing the balloon stuck in the fan. Once the nodding stops the grunting begins – this is my cue that I have reached the question and answer portion of the story. “Was Pop supposed to throw the balloon into the fan?” I oblige. “NO,” Lana replies and furrows her brow in an attempt to look stern and serious. “How did the balloon get down?” I ask. She thinks for a moment and then her face lights up as she exclaims, “Ganny! Ganny! Boon!” I interpret this as “Granny got the balloon down.” Lana flashes me a huge grin and then as quickly as the story began it is over, at least for the next 15 minutes.

I am both impressed by her memory of this incident and a little concerned that a balloon in a fan has been the highlight of her month. It seems we need to get out more.

A Sweet Valentine

Worth It

There are times when I dislike working from home – times when I miss lunches with coworkers, office gossip, and the physical separation from laundry, dirty dishes, and a moody toddler. But then I look out my office window and see my Lana pushing her new baby stroller down the driveway (followed closely by my Mom, of course), and I can’t imagine a better working situation. Also, the commute doesn’t suck.