18 month newsletter

Dear Beatrix,

Yesterday you turned 18 months old, and to mark the occasion I decided that I was 18 weeks pregnant. (I really was.)

You seem to be happy with my pregnancy, as long as I still carry you when you want and feed you on a regular basis. You seem to understand that I have a baby in my belly and you'll often lift my shirt and say "bebe" and kiss my belly. It's quite cute. I hope that you feel the same about the baby once s/he's here and you're no longer the littlest. I think you'll do well, you're quite nurturing and are so attracted to babies.

So you've made it 18 months! Despite Daddy putting your diapers on backwards and dressing you in mismatching pajamas.

Your vocabulary has exploded in the past few weeks. So far you're saying 2-3 new words a day, I'm stunned sometimes that you've managed to remember a word that you heard weeks ago. The other day you pointed to a butterfly in a book and said "butterfly" clear as could be. We haven't talked about butterflies in weeks, and yet you remembered the word. You're also trying to count. One day you counted the buttons on Daddy's shirt, touching each one, "un, oo, ee, oar", then yesterday we were counting my fingers, touching each one in turn, I counted the odd ones and you the even ones "tooo, oar....". I think you're a little genius, other people tell me that you're just mimicking us. I disagree.

You still eat like a wee little bird, content to live on air and love. About once every 2 or 3 days you'll eat a good solid meal, leaving me wondering if you're going to explode with the amount of food you've tucked away. Fruit and vegetables still are your favourite fodder, which I hope continues to hold. I haven't found a fruit or veggie that you won't eat, although tomatoes are your least favourite. Meat is still hit and miss for you, and you're still off of cow's milk.

You love to be outside and demand "shoes" several times a day. When outside you love to run and smell the flowers and point out trees and airplanes. We bought you a sand box a couple of weeks ago and we play in it nearly everyday. Mostly you like to throw the sand, showing us that we made the right choice to not buy the $1 a pound sand. Perhaps when you're not throwing it around we'll splurge for that sand.

As for indoor toys, you're all about cars, balls, babies and books. If you would master holding two balls in one hand with a baby and a car while reading a book you would be the happiest toddler in the world. However, my sweet baby love, sometimes you have to let the dream go. How about you read your book to your baby, or even a book about balls, or cars. I think that this would make everyone happier. Your most recent toy love is cars, and we have about a dozen little matchbox cars scattered around the house. You love them, and if you weren't so cute when you said "car" I would have hid them in the garbage disposal by now, they hurt when you step on them! Along with your car love you love your babies and balls, you're always asking Daddy and I to open your sack of ball pit balls, just so you can run through them and scatter them everywhere. We indulge you, it makes you so happy. As a baby bonus you help us clean them up too! Topping off all of your toys are your books. I think that if you were given a choice of what toy you could only have, I'm pretty sure you'd choose your books. You still spend a lot of time in front of your bookshelf reading your books. Now that you're starting to talk too, I get to listen to you narrate the stories that you're reading. It's pretty cute, just as cute as when you say "cars".

It seems like you are taking to being a happy toddler like you took to being an "easy" baby. I think I'm a pretty lucky mama!

Love,
Mama.