Growth and Change

My sweetest Succotash, you are now 23 months old, and when I ask you how old you will be on your next birthday, you proudly say "Two!" You have gone a couple of days in a row with no toileting accidents, though we do schlep your baby potty with us everywhere. But sometimes you insist on using the grownup one. You are definitely getting it, and I am so proud of you. 

Your grandparents Manamana and Pop Pop (you rechristened Greg on this trip) have been staying for several weeks now, and as I write you are off playing with them. They plie you with chocolate muffins and balloons and I think it's okay for grandparents to spoil you a little. We have made the abrupt turn to autumn that happens in New England, and I am trying not to flip out about our leaving for New York in two weeks and change. 

We lost our Milo dog. I talk about him still, and I've told you what happened and asked if you have any questions. You knew your dad and I were very sad, and you even sort of pretend-cried about it, not because you aren't sad I don't think, but because it was behavior you hadn't really seen from us before and you were trying to figure it out. Pretending is good for that. 

The other day you counted to six. Sometimes you miss "one" and you don't always seem to know that numbers your are saying might correspond to an amount, rather than an order to repeat, but it's still cute and also surprising.

We took you to see polo, and you are now obsessed with horses. Also "hops," which you still call rabbits, so into them that I decided you and I would go as matching hops for Halloween, and your dad is going to go as a giant carrot. 

The thing I admire most about you is your tenacity. When you make up your mind to do something, you get down to it and do it, You are really interested in practicing things (like throwing, or jumping, or climbing), and you do it until you figure it out. I feel like that has been your approach to toilet learning - you studied up, looked at the books, watched other kids, and then made up your mind that you were ready. We had a couple of bumps and crises of faith (mine, not yours), but now you are just.... doing it. You don't even want to wear a diaper for nap anymore, and for the most part you don't need it. 

I am trusting your innate curiosity about places and people to welcome our arrival in the city, and hoping that watching you discover and learn will override my still irrational anxiety. I don't know what I'm so anxious about. But I think your dad is too. He has applied for a job at MIT, just in case, so that if need be we can just shut down the while NYC side of our lives and hunker down in Marblehead where we are safe.

You are a little person. You hate onions and sometimes get too much food in your mouth and spit it out on the floor, which drives me bananas. You have the best smile in the world, open-mouthed with delight, or wrinkled-nosed, and I love the sound of your giggle most of all. You strike me as essentially happy. Because you wake with a big smile on your face, now I do too. What a gift you are, you bundle of love revealed.