Letter to Anna: Month Fifteen

Dear Anna,

Over the past few months, I feel like your level of emotion has gone through the roof. You’ve definitely come into your own, have opinions and aren’t afraid to voice them. The flip side is that you are capable of so much love and affection that my heart melts on a daily basis. You’re passionate, just like your Mom, which means you fight hard, but you love harder. It’s not always pretty to see yourself personified in a 15-month old, but since you don’t favor me as much in the looks department, I guess I’ll have to take it where I can get it.

Your personality is developing more and more each day and you are SO funny. I have no idea how you know comedic timing at such a young age, but you do, and it’s hilarious. Your Gigi was up a couple of weeks ago feeding you a banana for breakfast and you were cracking us up. You’d let her put a bite in your mouth, but would then pretend you had no interest in it, would wait for her to almost take it out, then laugh and chow down. You probably had to be there, but we were dying laughing. You are deadpan serious on so many occasions, just waiting for us to fall for your joke, then you grin that grin and die laughing.

You talk a lot and are a total chatterbox. You can say HI!!!, doggies, Daisy, ball, and lots of dadadada and mamamama, and babababa. Ok, not as much mamamama as the others, but I’m trying to not take the personally. You’ll occasionally say “hi!” on command, but mostly you talk when you want to. I can tell you’re trying hard to add more words to your vocabulary; you’ll mouth along when we sing the ABC song and you routinely sit and ‘read’ to yourself at home. You are starting to understand more of what we’re telling you and sign language helps a bit. The book we read to you each night has a line that says “I love you and you love me”, and it only took about a week before you picked up on what this meant and kissed one of both of us when we read that part. Of course that makes us melt and therefore means we usually read that book 2-3 times before you are actually put in your crib.

You’re extremely interactive these days, during the times where you aren’t attached to my hip. You and Dad still love to chase each other around in the evenings and will spend a decent portion of the evening giving each other high-fives. If you’re lucky your Dad will also give you a ride in any random box that’s waiting to go out to the recycle bin, just like your Paw Paw did with me. I don't get left out of the picture, though, you love to sit on my lap when my legs are crossed and if you're lucky, one of the cats will come over and give you buddy bumps.  You're expanding your repertoire of dance moves and now have the "maniac" perfected; that's where you shuffle your feet as fast as you can and move your arms in rhythm, we help you sing along "I'm a maniac, maniac on the dance floor" and you die laughing. 

You love to be in the thick of the action once you’re comfortable with a situation. You love to imitate activities, specifically around getting yourself dressed; we’re still working on putting your shoes on by yourself (it will be quite a while), but you love to brush your hair, attempt to get dressed (sometimes), and put things away. You love to imitate sounds too; allergies have hit me hard this year and I’ve been a snotty, coughing mess, but I die laughing when you imitate me coughing. We could go on for an hour with me making a noise and you “imitating” it, but I usually have a real coughing fit about 5 minutes into the “game.”

You can tell us where your nose, ears, eyes, mouth, hair and belly button are located on your body. The belly button may get us in a world of trouble down the road as you love to lift up that little shirt of yours and show off that tummy. The nose usually causes you to get tripped up on your nostril and then we’re into full-blown picking mode. We’re still working on the logistics with that one. Oh, and when you “show” us your mouth, you take that to mean you should just stick your tongue out. Again, logistics, but we’ll get there. You have several puzzles you can pretty much work on your own and you’re getting there with your bucket of shapes. You tend to get frustrated fairly quickly, but at least you’re trying, right?

You’re getting your first year molars and I can’t say that I love this process. It’s probably a combination of becoming a toddler, slight upper respiratory “funks”, lack of good naps on any given day, or the way wind is blowing, but I’ve noticed an extra dose of “fussy” around the time that one of those massive molars is breaking through. I’d like to personally request the rest of your molars, heck all of your teeth for that matter, come through at the same time; let’s just get it all over with at once.

I try to steer clear of telling you “no” on repeat or too often. Not because some parenting book told me that, and I certainly don’t want you to grow up with a sense of entitlement to everything; it’s just that our time together each day is limited and I’d rather us have fun than me scolding you repeatedly. My preferred method is to divert your attention. That means if you’re racing toward the oven that’s blaring at 400 degrees, I’ll grab your little hand and walk you over to a puzzle. Most of the time you love walking with me, I think it makes you feel like a “big kid” who’s in on a special game or activity; after all, Mom’s leading the way. During our walk, no matter how long or short, you always look up at me with an ear-to-ear grin and it makes me melt each time. I love our walks, even if it’s from the oven to the family room, a mere 30 feet away. I know you won’t want to hold my hand forever and won’t always look up at me with that toothy grin, but right now you do, and I love it. Please know that no matter where you are in life or what distance may separate us, I’ll always be there to hold your hand and attempt to steer you in the right direction.

Love,
Mom