Child Labor

Your very new most favorite activity is washing the dishes. Well, sort of. It's standing on your new toddler kitchen helper tower thing at the kitchen sink and playing with the water, filling cups, pouring cups out, filling salad bowls, dumping salad bowls down yourself, and then eating dinner in wet sweatpants and no shirt.

That's not fair - you are actually getting quite good at keeping the water in the sink while you play. But given that we are still on a two showers a day schedule - instituted when your poor baby nose had chronic sinusitis and the steam was the only thing that would really help - and all you do in the shower is play with water and the sprayer and cups of various sizes and with different holes in them - your dad and I are very amused that you can't get enough sink time. As a corollary to this newfound enthusiasm you have also been introduced to mopping. You are a fan. It's no vacuuming, but it's close. 

This morning as we readied for Montessori you lobbied to play in the sink, but instead settled for watching me make you a cream cheese and mango-peach jelly sandwich while toying with a measuring spoon. I told you you could take your measuring spoon to school to show everyone if you wanted to. You were very stoked at this, keeping tight hold of it as I pulled on your sweatshirt and socks and sneakers, and when we put on your coat as I bundled you out of the car. When we got to your classroom you held up your measuring spoon in triumph, and Miss Paula asked if you wanted to go show it to Miss Kerrie. You dashed into the room, going UH UH UH and brandishing your measuring spoon, eager to share your discovery with everyone.

Still not a lot of talking, but I have lost count of all the words you can understand and identify in pictures. You've got all the words in the "101 first words" book your grandmother sent, and then a whole bunch more besides. You are usually able to make yourself understood with gestures and points and grunts and sign language. When we read the word "mittens" in Goodnight Moon you sweetly touch the tips of your index fingers together and then look at me to see if I saw. 

I did.

Iono

 We are halfway through our second week of deep winter and no Montessori. Upstairs I can hear you objecting to having your diaper changed, for even though we have begun discussions of what potties are, and have a few books about it, potty training is still a largely hypothetical concept for a boy not quite one and a half years old. As you yodel your objections I want to note something funny that happened yesterday on the back stairs.

We were getting our coats on and getting ready to do something, or go somewhere, or something, and you were a couple of steps up on the deliciously forbidden back stairs of desire, lounging with the smugness only a toddler who has pushed a boundary can express. You had two peanuts in your hand. You threw them in the air and one when skittering behind a box on the landing by the back door.

"Oh no!" I cried. "Where did you peanut go?"

You turned your palms upward in an exaggerated shrug and said "Iuuuhno."

I laughed out loud.

"Did he just say "I don't know?"" asked your father, who was standing by the coats getting his warm stuff on.

"Did you just say "I don't know?" I asked you.

You smiled, did your theatrical shrug again, and again said "Iuuuhno."

Your dad picked you up and said "Are you just going straight to complete sentences and skipping words?"

You giggled, obviously pleased with yourself. 

"He can say that, but he won't say 'up?'" I remarked.

Later, at dinner, as you slowly fed yourself pieces of cut up portobello mushroom and sundried tomato pizza with a side of shelled edamame, much of which you moved piece by piece into your water cup (another new phase, which we idly wonder if it might be evolutionary, given the abrupt appearance and singular focus you bring to the enterprise), we laughed over the fact that your first sentence, rather than being "I love you," is "I don't know."

Also, you've finally dropped the morning nap and are sleeping sometimes as late as six thirty in the morning. It's a whole new world. 

A Snowstorm is Coming

 And this morning when I dropped you at Montessori your friend Saoirse was so excited to see you she jogged over, baby ponytail on top her her head trembling with excitement, and waited for me to undo the baby gate to let you in. When the gate was gone she reached out her hand for you. You took momentary shelter in my shoulder while I peeled off your winter coat, but then you tentatively reached your own hand out, and took hers.

I love you so much I sometimes feel like I'm going to explode.

Also I time our getting ready in the morning to the progression of the Duke Ellington playlist on Spotify. By the time we got to "Take the A Train" we need to have our play clothes on and be almost ready to go downstairs and make your lunch. I've started singing "So, we'll take the A train, it's the quickest way to get to Harborlight! So, let's take the A train! It's the quickest way to get to school! If you take the A train, you'll go play with all your friends. So, we take the A train! It's the way we get to school!"

Snowy Day

 This morning we sat together looking out the third floor window at the freshly fallen snow over Stacey Street. We like to look out the window in the morning and name the things we see.

"Uck!" You said, pointing with excitement at a white pickup truck with a snowplow attached and some fetching flashing lights on the roof. "Uck" means both "truck" and "duck" at the moment, so I said "That's right Succotash! It's a white truck. Look at the snow plow. It's moving the snow." You were nothing short of rapt.

The other day for the first time you were old enough, and Milo felt young enough, for you to play together. You tossed a fuzzy bedroom slipper for him and he gamboled after it, playing in a way he hasn't been up for in a long time. You were delighted, and squealed and flapped your arms in excitement, and threw the slipper again. Then when I said "Milo says woof woof," you said "woof" and smiled. 

You have also said something like "umreah" while playing with one of your umbrellas. Umbrellas are your favorite. You use a large black one that I got at the Guggenheim gift shop one suddenly rainy day in Manhattan years ago as a pretend vacuum cleaner, sweeping its tip over the floor with singular dedication and focus. You also like the rainbow one your father got you for Christmas, with your name embroidered on it. But your very favorite is the hot pink one mini one with the duck head handle that we keep in the car. "Uck," you say when I slip it onto your lap. You pet the duck head as you drift off to sleep on our drive to Beverly for you to go to Montessori. I rather love that your snuggle transitional object is a hot pink duck umbrella. You love the duck face, and you love the bright color when we occasionally have to open it over your head. You throw your head back and smile up into the bright pinkness with delight. 

You know lots of words that you can't say yet, like parts of your body (feet, arms, tummy, head), items of clothing (shirt, hat, pants, socks, shoes), colors too I think. You know the names of all your teachers and classmates in Willow room. You say "Baa" when we play with little toy sheep, and you've tried to say "moo," but you know which toy is a cow and which is a pig and which is a sheep and which is a horse. I mean, I know everyone learns these things, but it still astonishes me. When we were reading a book I pointed at one part of the page and said "there's the mama," and you pointed at me. Then I said "there's the daddy," and you pointed to your dad. And then I said "And this is the baby. Who is the baby?" and you pointed at yourself. Mindblown. You have a concept of yourself. You have a self. 

And that is where things stand, at not quite 16 months. 

New Day

 You are at school after growing a new molar and powering through your second cold, and where you reportedly know all the other children's names and all the teachers' names too. You have started identifying other mamas and daddies and babies in your books, and other dogs like your dog, and you know which are the chickens and the cows and the horses and pigs for your play farm, and you have discovered that letters actually stand for something, and we think maybe you have put together that your name has something to do with the letter C.

And while you were at school, Biden and Harris were sworn in, and the long national nightmare might... maybe.... be over.

Your father and I still feel tense and afraid. I hope you haven't noticed. All I want in the world is for you to feel safe.

For you to be safe.

All I want in the world.

Reminder

 You will get home in about ten minutes, and I just thought I would remind you that you fill my heart with light and joy and just thinking about you makes me smile. Sometimes I want the whole world to go away so that I can bask in you. I miss your baby cheeks and your kicky feet and even though you got me up before 5 this morning (why, Succotash, why?), I cannot wait to see and hold you again.

Only ten more minutes.

Do all mothers secretly feel this way? Or only ones as old and desperate as I was? No matter. Soon I get to see my baby, who is a toddler now, and that is all I need.

Coup

 Yesterday, the control of the Senate flipped to the Democrats, you said the word "bath" and pretended to give your stuffed sloth nose drops, and right-wing extremists invaded the Capitol building in Washington and tried to stage a coup. Well, sort of. Mostly they just wrecked stuff and took selfies and scared lawmakers and were too stupid to actually have a plan. They didn't even hack the House speaker's computer while sitting at her desk. Morons. Fortunately the work of certifying the electors continued into the night, as you slept for three hours all by yourself on your own mattress before deciding at ten that you would rather sleep with me after all. 

You made little shouts to indicate this preference. But you weren't upset, I don't think. I think it was baby for "HEY. MOM? ARE YOU IN HERE?" [pause.] "MAMA?" [pause] "I'M AWAKE AND YOU CAN SNUGGLE ME IF YOU WANT." 

The reason I think this is because I tried to wait a bit before going to you - it's hard, Succotash - and when I finally climbed down next to you I could swear you giggled like you had just gotten away with something. 

Anyway. Democracy remains in effect, only two more weeks before the worst president in American history is finally booted out of the building, and you are picking up words left and right. And you are very brave, practicing sleeping in your own bed. 

I am proud of you, my favorite baby. And so glad you are unaware of the wider world this year.